By phase
Tactics in the middlegame
The phase with everything still on the board, where a combination has the most material to work with and the most places to hide. Nearly half of all puzzles are from here, and so is nearly every game that ends before an endgame is reached.
How to spot it
Crowded positions reward the same scan every time: their loose pieces, their overloaded defenders, and their king's cover. Do it in that order. Most middlegame combinations are one of those three noticed a move before the opponent notices it.
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.
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1. White to play Play it out →Answer
27.Be6+ Kh8 28.Rg8#
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2. White to play Play it out →Answer
31.Rxg5+ fxg5 32.Qxg5+
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3. White to play Play it out →Answer
33.bxc5 Rxg3+ 34.Qxg3 Bxg3 35.Rxb7
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4. White to play Play it out →Answer
11.Bd6+ Kxd6 12.Nf7+ Kc7 13.Nxd8
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5. Black to play Play it out →Answer
24...Bxa6 25.Rxd8 Rxd8 26.Rxd8 Kxd8
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6. White to play Play it out →Answer
13.Qxf7+ Rxf7 14.Rd8#
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7. White to play Play it out →Answer
37.Qd3+ Kh8 38.Qxd4
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8. White to play Play it out →Answer
19.Qe5 d6 20.Qxd6
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9. Black to play Play it out →Answer
23...Qc6 24.f3 Re8
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10. Black to play Play it out →Answer
24...Nhxg4 25.fxg4 Bxg4
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11. White to play Play it out →Answer
29.Qxe6+ Kh8 30.Qg8+ Rxg8 31.Nf7#
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12. White to play Play it out →Answer
22.Ne6+ Kf7 23.Rxc7+ Qxc7 24.Nxc7
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.