Checkmate
A chess tactics trainer with the soul of an arcade game
01
Spot the win, feel it land
Find the move that wins and the board snaps to life: the opponent fires back the only reply, your streak climbs, and the score slams up with a screen shake.
02
Exactly one best move
No fluff, no filler turns. Read a real position, click a piece, click where it goes, and play out the whole line. The thrill is seeing it before you commit.
03
Three ways to play
Train drills one pattern at your own pace, Rush is three strikes and chase the high score, and Rated climbs a ladder of puzzles matched to your strength.
04
Hundreds of puzzles, ten themes
About 380 hand-checked puzzles span Back Rank, Forks, Pins, Skewers, Smothered Mates and more, drawn from the open Lichess database and verified move by move by the game's own engine.
05
Watch yourself improve
A rating that actually moves, per-theme mastery bars, plus solve counts, accuracy and best runs, so you can see exactly which tactics you have nailed and which still need work.
06
It teaches without lecturing
You learn by doing. Get a fork wrong, try again, and the pattern sticks. Each solve names the tactic and explains in one line why it works, so you start seeing forks instead of calculating them.
Why it exists
I love the number-go-up rush of games like Balatro, but most of that dopamine teaches you nothing. Checkmate keeps the rush and aims it at a real skill: every puzzle is a genuine tactic from a real game, so a climbing score actually means you are getting sharper.
About this project
A chess tactics trainer with the soul of an arcade game. You are dropped into a real position with one job: find the move that wins. Spot it and the board snaps to life, the score slams up, and a wrong move just means you try again. About 380 engine-verified puzzles span ten tactical themes, drawn from the open Lichess database and checked move by move. Drill a single pattern at your own pace in Train, chase a high score in Rush, or climb a rating ladder in Rated. It teaches chess without lecturing: every solve names the tactic and tells you in one line why it works.
Tech Stack