Intermediate Puzzles

Longer combinations, same small board

This tier holds the piece count where it was, 4 to 10, and raises only the tactical difficulty, to puzzles rated 1400 to 2200 running 2 to 6 moves deep. That separation is deliberate. There are two independent ways a blindfold puzzle can beat you: the position is too crowded to hold, or the combination is too long to calculate. Keeping the board small isolates the second one, so when you fail here you know it was the calculation and not your memory.

The themes change character at this level. Beginner puzzles are mostly one-move pattern recognition, a fork you either see or do not. From 1400 up you meet sacrifices, deflections, decoys, and zugzwang, which means the first move often looks wrong and only justifies itself two or three moves later. That is hard enough with a board in front of you and genuinely demanding without one, because you have to hold the intermediate positions as well as the final one. Work through the adaptive puzzle drill until the easy tier is comfortable before spending time here, and go up to expert puzzles at 2200+ when these stop hurting. The tactical vocabulary itself is covered in the chess tactics guide.