Mate Me

Welcome to Mate Me

Chess is a game of patterns, calculation, and problem solving. The more positions you work through, the more you start to recognize those patterns when they show up again.

That's the idea behind Mate Me: solve a lot of chess problems and get better at seeing the solution.

Mate Me was designed to make that practice simple. Each book gives you hundreds of chess problems to work through, arranged to become progressively more challenging as you go.

One board. One problem. Find the mate.

There are no pieces to move and no computer waiting to tell you whether your first idea was right. Study the position, consider the possibilities, and calculate the solution before turning to the answer.

That matters.

Solving from a static board forces you to calculate instead of click. You have to visualize the moves, anticipate the defense, and work out the continuation yourself rather than relying on trial and error.

The computer isn't moving the pieces for you.

Your brain has to.

And because this is the print edition, there's nothing between you and the position. No screen, no app, and no notifications. Just a chessboard on the page and a problem waiting to be solved.

Take your time. Calculate as far as you need to. If you aren't sure, look again before checking the solution. Some problems will come quickly. Others may take a while. That's part of the process.

That's what Mate Me is about: a simple way to work through a lot of chess problems, one at a time, at your own pace.

Study the board. Calculate the moves. Find the mate.

About This Book

Mate Till Death is the final book in the Mate Me series.

The problems in this book begin around the 2300 level and go up from there. The ratings use the Glicko-2 rating system and are based on how difficult the problems have been for people to solve.

Unlike the first five books, there is no fixed number of moves to checkmate. A problem might be Mate in Two, Mate in Three, Mate in Five, or something longer.

That's because this book isn't about how far away the checkmate is. It's about how difficult it is to find.

A Mate in Three can be extremely difficult if the board is complicated, the winning move is quiet, or several other moves look just as convincing. A longer checkmate can sometimes be easier if every move is forced. For this book, the positions were selected for the challenge they present rather than simply the length of the solution.

The early problems start around the 2300 level, but don't expect them to feel easy. There may be many legal moves to consider, multiple checks, defensive resources, crowded positions, unusual mating patterns, or a first move that doesn't look like the beginning of a checkmate at all.

There isn't really an upper rating target this time. The goal is simply to keep making the problems harder.

Don't assume a problem needs a long combination simply because it's difficult. Sometimes the hardest move to find is the very first one.

As always, the ratings aren't grades or estimates of your playing rating. They're a way of organizing the collection, not a measure of how good a chess player you are. If a problem takes you a long time, that's probably exactly what it was supposed to do.

By the time you reach the end of Mate Till Death, you'll have worked through the entire Mate Me series, from straightforward one-move checkmates to some of the most difficult positions in the collection.

There isn't another book waiting for you after this one.

You're on your own now. :)