By difficulty
Crushing attacks
Positions where the right move does not win a pawn, it wins outright. lichess labels a puzzle crushing when the solution takes the evaluation past the point where anything else matters, so these are the tactics that finish games rather than improve them.
How to spot it
The clue is usually that something forcing exists and looks too expensive. When the opponent's king is exposed or their pieces are tangled, calculate the violent move first, because a position that is about to collapse rewards the move that hurries it rather than the one that keeps everything defended.
The positions
Easiest first. Every one is from a real game, and the rating under each board is what it costs the players who have tried it on lichess.
-
1. Black to play Play it out →Answer
17...Rxe1+ 18.Qxe1 Qxd3
-
2. Black to play Play it out →Answer
59...Qb2+ 60.Kc5 Qxb8
-
3. White to play Play it out →Answer
18.Bb4+ Ke6 19.Nf4+
-
4. Black to play Play it out →Answer
39...Rh5+ 40.Rh4 Qxc4
-
5. Black to play Play it out →Answer
25...Qxb4 26.cxb4 Rxc1+
-
6. Black to play Play it out →Answer
23...Qe1+ 24.Kh2 Bxe5+
-
7. White to play Play it out →Answer
30.Qe6+ Kb8 31.Qd7 b6 32.Qxe8+
-
8. Black to play Play it out →Answer
31...Qxb3 32.Rxb3 Ra1+ 33.Kh2 f2
-
9. White to play Play it out →Answer
33.Rf4 Re4 34.Qh4+ Kg7 35.Rxe4
-
10. White to play Play it out →Answer
24.Rxc6 Rxd3 25.Qxd3
-
11. Black to play Play it out →Answer
63...g5 64.Kh2 Rxg2+
-
12. Black to play Play it out →Answer
24...Qf2+ 25.Kh1 Qxg3
Reading about a pattern is the easy half. Motify finds the positions where you missed one, by running your own lichess and Chess.com games through Stockfish, and puts each of them behind two or three puzzles on the same idea so you meet it having just found it three times. See how Motify works.
Positions from the lichess puzzle database, released under CC0.