Checkmate Patterns Manual (Chessable) Review

Do not buy the Checkmate Patterns Manual on Chessable until you have seen its price and a preview, because we could not open its course page. The print edition's listing describes a sensible product, 19 named mating patterns and 1,000 exercises, but that is the book's blurb, and it is not a statement of what the Chessable course contains today.

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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken this course. This page is based on published documentation, pricing and reports, and in this case mostly on a retailer's book listing and search results. How we review explains the limits.

This review has no star score. Fit, price and limits are set out instead, and how reviews are made is public.

What we could and could not read

Only one page describing this product opened for us, and it sells the book. Our fetcher returned just the site name or an error for the Chessable course page, so we have no Chessable price, chapter list, video figure, level or update date. New in Chess's own listing failed to load. The Forward Chess ebook listing, read on 8 November 2026, did open, and it calls the product a "Chessable print book". Anything below marked "as shown in search listings" was seen in search results on 8 November 2026 and we could not open the page directly.

What the book listing says

The Forward Chess listing gives the scope, and search listings add the structure.

• Author: Raf Mesotten, "an average club player from Belgium" in the blurb.- Exercises: 1,000 "at all levels of difficulty".
• Structure: a Lichess blog review by Minckwitz, as shown in search listings, describes a basic test, then thirty patterns with a chapter each, then the 1,000 exercises in the second half.
• Length and level: 376 pages, labelled "Intermediate" by Forward Chess.
• History: the blurb says the Chessable course "has since been finetuned" after user feedback. It gives no dates.
• Print price: about 39.95 EUR at one retailer and 36.95 GBP at another, as shown in search listings. Forward Chess shows the ebook at $39.99 but marks it "Coming Soon" with an expected release of 9 December 2025, a date already past on 8 November 2026, so do not assume you can download it.

Syllabus check: the named patterns

The blurb names 19 patterns: Anastasia, Greco, Hook, Arabian, Vukovic, Smothered, Suffocation, Corner, Morphy, Pillsbury, Lolli, Opera, Damiano, Max Lange, Dovetail, Swallow's Tail, David & Goliath, Boden and Balestra. All 19 appear on ChessFox's free list of 36 patterns, which we read on the same day. The blurb says "the list goes on", so a name missing from it is not a gap in the book.

As a matter of coaching convention, rather than anything measured, the patterns below are the ones to have secure first, because they turn up as finishing ideas in ordinary club attacks. Use the table as a quick self-test before spending money.

What we still cannot check is the part that decides whether the drilling is useful: how far the mates run (mate in one, or longer forcing sequences), whether a wrong answer gets an explanation, and whether the exercises are mixed or grouped by pattern. A common coaching caution is that exercises grouped by pattern tell you the theme in advance, which makes them easier than spotting the same idea in a game.

How long 1,000 exercises would take

The workload is manageable if you pace it. Calculated from the listed count, 1,000 exercises at 20 a day is 50 days, and at 10 a day is 100 days. A full second pass at the same rate doubles either figure. Those are assumed paces, not measured ones, and they leave out the time spent on the pattern chapters.

Is repeating them worthwhile? One blogger's view is mixed. In a 2023 post on the Woodpecker Method, SmithyQ says he can see the value of repeating a curated set such as "CraftyRaf's Checkmate Patterns", then says that repeating "the Checkmate Patterns course" a chapter a day seemed to solidify the patterns but left him at best maintaining his level. We take CraftyRaf to be this course's author, but the post does not say so. SmithyQ also has a free course on Chessable, and his account is one person's experience.

Book or Chessable course?

The choice depends on whether you want scheduled drilling, because we cannot compare prices. A printed book was listed at about 39.95 EUR or 36.95 GBP in search listings and needs no account, while the Chessable version adds its MoveTrainer repetition, which only matters if you will use it daily. The Chessable price is unknown to us, so we will not say which is cheaper. Chess.com's January 2026 Chessable roundup says each course carries a 30-day money-back guarantee. We could not read Chessable's own terms, so confirm that before relying on it. If the guarantee holds and you buy, the sensible test is the first 300 exercises (10 a day for 30 days), which shows whether the difficulty and explanations suit you.

Who it might suit, and who should skip it

If the listing is accurate, it targets a player who wants named patterns explained and then drilled in volume. Skip it for now if:

• you need a confirmed price, level and preview before deciding, since we can offer none of the three;
• you already find mates in one or two moves reliably, when a broader tactics set would stretch you further;
• you are a complete novice and want a course whose page says so, in which case Crawl, Walk, Checkmate! below is explicitly described for novices and beginners.

The free resources that cover similar ground

Lichess Practice is free and has a Checkmates section with Piece Checkmates I-II, Checkmate Patterns I-IV and Knight and Bishop Mate. The ChessFox list adds worked diagrams and a free PDF of its 36 patterns. See Lichess studies and practice. You give up a single author's progression and a fixed set of 1,000 exercises.

Better-documented alternatives on Chessable

Both pages below were read on 8 November 2026. Prices are USD list prices and may change; Crawl, Walk, Checkmate! also showed sale prices of $11.99 and $29.98 that day. A base price buys the trainable puzzles and only part of any video, so use the second price if you want the lectures.

Courses on Chessable are sold one at a time. See the Chessable review for how that works, the best checkmate patterns courses for the cross-seller comparison, and the Woodpecker Method review if you want a broader puzzle set built for repetition.

What the seller's pages do not tell you

• The Chessable page was unreadable to us. A missing price here means "not obtained", not "not published".
• The listing describes the book. Whether the course has the same 1,000 exercises and thirty chapters is unconfirmed.
• The opinions are about the book. Matthew Sadler's "4 stars" appeared in New In Chess magazine 2023/1, and New in Chess is the book's publisher. The Lichess review's verdict, "useful, fun and well researched", was seen only as a search listing.
• Unit costs depend on which figure you trust. On 1001 Checkmate Exercises, $19.99 for the 1,401 puzzles in the page stats is about 1.4 cents each. Our comparison page notes that its description says 1,101, which would be about 1.8 cents (both calculated from listed figures).