The Best Free Chess Puzzles in 2026 — And Why Personalised Ones Work Better

Chess puzzles are the backbone of tactical improvement. But in 2026, the puzzle landscape is split: some platforms lock their best content behind paywalls, while others offer millions of puzzles for free. Here's what you need to know.

The Lichess Open Database

Lichess maintains the largest open-source chess puzzle database in the world — over 4 million puzzles, all free, all derived from real games. Every puzzle has a difficulty rating, themes, and a verified solution. The database is released under CC0, meaning anyone can use it for any purpose.

This is genuinely remarkable. A decade ago, high-quality chess puzzles were locked inside expensive books. Today, millions of them are freely available to anyone with an internet connection.

Cassandra draws from this database for its general puzzle library. Every puzzle you solve in our library comes from a real game position, rated and themed by the Lichess community.

The Chess.com Paywall Problem

Chess.com offers excellent puzzles, but free users are limited to a small number per day. Want more? That's a premium subscription. Want game analysis with engine evaluations? Premium again. Want to see where you blundered? You guessed it — premium.

This creates a frustrating situation for improving players. The players who need the most practice — those making the most blunders — are the ones who can least afford unlimited access.

Why Generic Puzzles Have Limits

Even with unlimited free puzzles, there's a fundamental problem: generic puzzles are generic. They're drawn from other people's games, featuring positions you may never encounter in your own play.

A 1200-rated player who plays the Italian Game faces different tactical patterns than a 1200-rated player who plays the Sicilian. A player who struggles with endgame conversions needs different training than one who hangs pieces in the opening.

Random puzzles improve your tactics generally. But targeted puzzles — ones that match your specific weaknesses — improve you faster.

The Personalised Puzzle Concept

What if your puzzle training was built from your own games? Every blunder you make becomes a puzzle. Every position where you went wrong becomes a drill. Your training set is unique to you, targeting exactly the patterns where you lose rating points.

This is what Cassandra does. Connect your Chess.com or Lichess account, and we analyse your games with Stockfish — the same engine analysis that Chess.com charges for. We find your blunders and generate personalised puzzles from them.

The result: a puzzle bank that's 100% relevant to your actual chess. No generic positions. No paying for analysis. Just targeted training on your real weaknesses.

Unlimited, Free, No Paywall

Cassandra is free. No puzzle limits. No subscription tiers. No paywalled game analysis. Connect your account, and your entire game history becomes your personal training ground.

We believe chess improvement tools should be accessible to everyone — not locked behind a paywall that gates the players who need them most.

[Get your free personalised puzzles →](/connect)