My apologies if this is posted in the wrong forum.

I am new to the whole "chess puzzle" thing, but recognize that it's probably the best way for me to learn and improve. My game as of late has been "stagnant" at best.

The "mate in two" puzzles I feel I can grasp - there are only so many moves to be made, and I guess I just think they are easier to see. But what about chess puzzles that are more drawn out? mate in 3? 4? 11?

These are difficult for me to even grasp. Where to begin? Should I just stick to the 2's and 3's for now? Is there an overall strategy to be employed in solving chess problems in general?

Thanks for reading.

mrtr33,
Great question! In an actual game, we usually aren't told the number of moves until mate; we must just examine the position for opportunities. To that end, I would encourage you to get a book that doesn't have specific move numbers but rather specific themes (forks, pins, Q sacs, etc.). I recommend Fred Reinfeld's 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations. see this link for more information: Amazon.com: One Thousand and One Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations: Fred Reinfeld: Books
Don't worry if you don't solve many at first; it'll take you a dozen or so puzzles to get used to them.
Also, when you're analyzing a position for possible tactics, think in this order: checks, captures, threats.

-JrChess
Visit us at the JrChess Home of Pensacola Chess

in general, with every chess puzzle, it's best to start calculating with forced moves - because your opponent's responses for these are limited, so the tree of options is narrow. therefore you can quickly discard some of these moves, or find the right one among them - saving yourself lots of time and effort in either case.

i sincerely recommend you watch the videos made by this user YouTube - teoeo's Channel

they are really really worth watching, even more than once

myself, i am by no means a strong player, but since you seem to be a beginner, i feel entitled to give some advice from my humble knowledge

in my opinion, when faced with a chess problem, you should spend a long time READING the position (instead of looking for any particular moves)

seek for all the elements and patterns you can, and compile a list of them in your head

and then finding the right move is quite similar to solving a murder in a classical detective story you just have to connect all the clues

for example, take a look at this puzzle (from Chesstempo)


White to play

I solved it, but - while not very hard, it only has 45.83% success rate on the server

The right move is


but why?

that's the comment i wrote under this problem (after i solved it)



- so that was the reasoning i used. as you can see, solving it (even without knowing what kind of tactics it was - a mating attack, winning material? on Chesstempo you're not told that in advance, just like you aren't in real games) was based on having carefully READ the position. you had to notice 1. the battery... 2. the fork... 3. the pin. then realize what they all "mean" combined - and draw the right conclusion. failing to spot any of the themes, you couldn't see the correct move

i don't know if this problem looks difficult for you, but difficulty is only a matter of greater or smaller complexity of the task... while general principle remains the same

so i'd say; start by "scanning" the whole board pedantically, and like a police inspector - write every even slightly suspicious detail down examine the forcing moves (as both JrChess and Teoeo say), examine all the relations/interactions between the themes you have found in the position - seeking for any fruitful ones.

do you guys agree

and final words of advice come to you from "Fatal1ty" world champion of various computer games => YouTube - Fatal1ty - Practice time

- i hope it helps