A Day In The Life Of Chess.com's Daily Puzzle Curator
Have you ever wondered how a Chess.com Daily Puzzle is made, and who or what is responsible for sharing a fresh Daily Puzzle each day, serving over one million daily solvers? I’m National Master Dane Mattson, aka @Fischwitsch, and I am the Chess.com Daily Puzzle curator. We’re going to explore how a Daily Puzzle is made, highlighting some of my favorite puzzles and stories, as well as learning a bit more about me, and how you, too, can be a Daily Puzzle contributor!
During my developmental chess years as a kid, American master Fred Reinfeld was a frequent dinner guest at our family table. Well, at least his book, 1001 Brilliant Chess Sacrifices, was an inseparable companion at home or on the bus—where and whenever I could sneak in a moment to absorb another tactical gem.
When I was 16, I started using this book to select puzzles for my first students. Little did I know that, 20 years later, I would not just select puzzles for my private students, I would curate Daily Puzzles for more than a million avid puzzle solvers as part of their daily Chess.com routine!
My first official Daily Puzzle was posted November 1, 2019. As of September 17, 2024, a grand whopping total of 642 users have solved this puzzle:
Dane’s First puzzle: November 1, 2019: “Crossing Wires”
Have you solved my first Daily Puzzle (online here)?
Quite a bit has changed on and beyond the 64 squares since then, and the Daily Puzzle continues to grow both in its structure and popularity. Every day, we now serve over one million Daily Puzzle solvers with an incredible range of playing strength and experience, from beginner to master-level players. Keeping this in mind, we try to make our Monday puzzles the most accessible puzzle of the week for less experienced players, and each day is designed to progress in difficulty until we reach the pinnacle of the week, the "Sunday Daily Puzzle," intended to give master-level players a taste of chess hot sauce!
Monday puzzles may be the most accessible, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun and troll our community. Keep your silverware on the table and hold your horses when you check out this Daily Puzzle:
Trolling 1.7 million Chess.com puzzle solvers and counting (this puzzle online here)!
As you progress on your Daily Puzzle journey throughout the week, the puzzle difficulty may increase and at times feel a bit overwhelming. Don't worry, you are not alone! Each day, in the Daily Puzzle video explainer, you have a master-level companion ready to breakdown the puzzle and explain the steps to solving the puzzle.
My Daily Puzzle creative process is inspired by multiple sources, including over-the-board (OTB) tournament games, epic encounters played right here on Chess.com, other online resources, and books. My most satisfying and rewarding inspiration, however, is working with Chess.com community members like you.
Game Review and You: The Ultimate Daily Puzzle Inspiration!
Chess.com user @EnPassantFork is an avid Daily Puzzle solver, encourages others in the Daily Puzzle chat forums, and has even created his own club for avid puzzle solvers. He has also contributed a number of great Daily Puzzle ideas. One of my favorite examples was inspired by Game Review, a "behind the scenes" inspiration for many Daily Puzzles!
When working with a chess engine, sometimes it feels like we plan, and Stockfish laughs. Qf7 is the idea, but how do we appease the engine gods? One way to is to add quite a bit of material for the non-solving side of the position, so there is just one clearly-winning solution for the puzzle solver, and all other alternatives are significantly worse or losing:
The Daily Puzzle requires one clearly best solution for the puzzle-solving side, preferably with all other alternative moves leading to a non-winning or even losing position to add more drama to the puzzle-solving experience. From that perspective, the engine approves of this position, as there is a forced checkmate for the puzzle-solving side and all other options are losing.
The problem is that the position feels quite artificial—for instance, what sort of mystical adventures did that rook take to reach the h6-square? In most cases we want a puzzle to feel like it could have been played in your very own game. How can we make this position more practical? Here's what EnPassantFork and I worked on together to create a fun, single solution puzzle, that very well could have been played in an actual game (well, it was inspired by an actual game!):
After quite a bit of trial and error, we find what appears to be harmony between the human solver and the engine observer. White must walk a narrow path to force checkmate as we added quite a bit of potential counterplay for the opponent, trying to make it as game-like and dramatic as possible. Once this puzzle was published, I received an increase in community puzzle ideas sent to my direct messages—a great trend that continues today!
A Coach’s Brilliant Lesson, My Dad’s 80th Birthday
Chess.com Coaches Club member coach and IM Slaven Pastar shared an amazing Daily Puzzle idea. Let's see how this brilliant idea found a Daily Puzzle home:
Despite being adorned with the brilliant (!!) annotation, I decided to set aside the knight hop to c3. Unleashing this brilliancy with its associated maze of variations was tempting and certainly possible, but I felt the story of this puzzle could be told in a clearer, yet still flashy and entertaining way. After some serious positional feng shui, I arranged the actors on stage to tell the story of Slaven's beautiful queen sacrifice:
I had the pleasure of recording the explanation video, giving a shoutout to Coach Pastar for sharing this amazing puzzle idea while also sending a celebratory message to another avid Chess.com user. Over 1.5 million users have solved this puzzle, and one of those users celebrated his 80th birthday that day:
My dad was the oldest participant in the event. He competed in the U1800 section, meaning any player under the USCF rating of 1800 is eligible to compete. After winning his first three games on the first day, two hard-fought draws on Sunday resulted in a 4/5 score, tying for first place. When asked about the secret to his success, he replied, "I am simply like any other 80-year-old chess prodigy."
Life Imitates The Daily Puzzle
In a recent OTB tournament, after an intense struggle, my opponent was facing an incredibly difficult, ultimately losing position. He spent quite a bit of time thinking about his move, and then made a deliberate choice to return his rook to the back rank, seemingly gift-wrapping the endangered queen and rook. I spent a moment analyzing, making sure I wasn't overlooking some hidden detail, and decided upon what I felt was the cleanest way to win the game:
After resigning, my opponent explained he moved the rook to f8 for a specific reason: “You once said that a player’s favorite checkmate is the smothered mate. Out of respect, I gave you the chance to deliver a smothered mate.”
It turned out I was playing a Daily Puzzle fan who was offering a "puzzle tribute" to end the game:
I thanked my opponent for the kind words, but unlike the typical Daily Puzzle, I was not confronted with a singular narrow path to victory. In this case I picked a line which I thought was the simplest to end the game.
Although I missed my "Daily Puzzle" opportunity in this OTB encounter, here’s one of my favorite smothered mate Daily Puzzles:
https://www.chess.com/daily-chess-puzzle/2023-11-12
A Daily Puzzle 20 Years in the Making
As a summer tradition, my dad and I participated in several Canadian Open tournaments starting in 2003. Chris White, aka @NoviceChessChannel, a player and coach whom my dad and I met 20 years ago at the Canadian Open, recently reconnected with me on Chess.com. He is now a school teacher and chess educator as well as an active member of our Chess.com Coaches Club. Chris and I haven't met in person for over 20 years, but the bonds formed in chess remain strong! He shared an amazing puzzle inspired by a game played in the Greater St. John's Chess League:
Who would have thought building a friendship at a tournament 20 years ago would inspire a wonderful Daily Puzzle in 2024? Acting as the Daily Puzzle curator has and continues to be an incredible privilege. It is my aim to delight our chess community by providing fun and instructive puzzles. As we continue to build relationships through the love of chess, millions of Chess.com users not only make solving the Daily Puzzle a part of their everyday routine, the community continues to actively inspire and create Daily Puzzles. Thank you for being a part of our growing community, and I'd love to hear from you if you have a puzzle idea you'd like to share with the world!
