Intermezzo Chess Puzzles

About intermezzo puzzles

Intermezzo — also called in-between move or zwischenzug — is the concept of inserting a powerful intermediate move into a sequence before making the expected reply. Instead of capturing back or making the natural continuation, you first play a move that creates an immediate threat, improving your position or gaining material before the main sequence resumes. Intermezzo puzzles train you to pause before making the obvious recapture and to ask whether a stronger intermediary move exists. This habit of checking for in-between moves is one of the most important calculation skills in chess and accounts for a large proportion of tactical oversights that cost games.

How to train intermezzo

A intermezzo is a shape, not a sequence. Once you can spot the shape you will find the move in seconds instead of calculating from scratch, so train for recognition speed: glance, name the pattern, then verify.

Questions

How many intermezzo puzzles are there?

Enough that you will not repeat them — this set is drawn from a library of over 1,000,000 puzzles taken from real games, graded from easy to hard.

What level is this suitable for?

Children from about age 5 upward, once they know how the pieces move, through to rated tournament players. Start on the easy set and move up when you are solving most of them at a glance.