This game is brilliant. As a chess educator and a long-time lover of games and puzzles, I was immediately drawn to ENIGMAT. With this blog post, I want to give ENIGMAT and its creator, Serge Bouillot, the wider recognition they deserve. I’ll explore the educational value of the game and explain why I believe it is a must-have tool for chess educators working with students.
I first discovered ENIGMAT a couple of years ago and have been curious ever since about the creative thinking behind the game and its potential as a teaching resource. So, I reached out to Serge Bouillot to learn more about how ENIGMAT came to be and how it is best used in educational settings.
What Is ENIGMAT?
ENIGMAT is a visual chess puzzle game. It is made up of 24 chessboards, each divided into four separate parts. Students must assemble the four parts to form a complete board that shows a checkmate position.
ENIGMAT was first created in 1995, while Serge was completing his diploma as a chess instructor in France. His final assignment was to present a chess-related activity for learners. He imagined a puzzle. His main goal was to design a game that is both useful and fun. At the time, Serge designed only four puzzles, but the idea stayed with him. Over the years, he developed dozens more, testing them with students and refining them through real classroom experience.
Were there any games that influenced Enigmat’s creation?
Yes, puzzles are something I’ve loved since I was very young, as well as logic problems.
What was your intended audience (age range, skill level)?
I didn’t have a target audience in mind when I designed my game. After devising enough exercises, I tested them in a school where I was teaching, and I saw immediately that children enjoyed them. Some puzzles are easier, and others are more difficult. For complete beginners, the difficulty can be reduced with a hint. By indicating, for example, that the black king is in the upper or lower part of the board, or on the kingside or queenside, the difficulty is halved. It is suitable for:
- School classrooms, Chess clubs
- Mixed-age and ability groups
- One-on-one, independent or pair work
Walk me through a standard ENIGMAT round: what is asked, what does the student do?
The standard game is played solo, and the teacher or a peer validates the attempts. When an attempt fails, it’s important not to give the solution but to guide the student to find their own mistake. Students must observe the board and explore questions like:
- Which pieces control which lines?
- Is the king able to escape? (capturing the attacking piece, blocking the attack or moving away)
- Are all escape squares covered?
A common (psychological?) error for beginners is not considering that the black king can escape by capturing a piece. ENIGMAT brings these misunderstandings to the surface.
How does ENIGMAT help students improve their skills and ability to “see” the chessboard?
Finding the correct checkmate position isn’t easy and often requires many attempts. Because students revisit similar ideas across many puzzles, learning becomes internalised rather than memorised. This repeated exposure allows children to gain independence and a stronger overall understanding of the chessboard. Skills developed by ENIGMAT that naturally transfer into their own games are:
- Visual-spatial reasoning
- Logical thinking
- Pattern recognition
- Persistence
- Peer collaboration
- A deeper, more intuitive understanding of checkmate
How would you suggest teachers use Enigmat in a chess class?
What I do quite often for a 10–15 minute activity is to give each student a puzzle and ask them to find the solution independently. They must have their attempt checked by peers before asking me (the teacher).
Other practical ways to use it in the classroom are:
- When there’s an odd number of students, the unpaired child works on ENIGMAT
- At the end of a lesson, when there isn’t time for a full game
- When students ask for it themselves 🙂
If teachers could take away just one idea from ENIGMAT, what should it be?
Try and see it for yourself. The game appeals to children.
I couldn’t agree more with Serge. Children love ENIGMAT, they are fully engaged with it, and I can assure you, ENIGMAT is great fun and a challenge for all ages who love chess and puzzles. I believe ENIGMAT must belong to educational settings because it trusts the process. When students enjoy an activity, they engage more deeply. When they engage more deeply, learning follows naturally.
The tactile, hands-on nature of Enigmat as a logic puzzle makes learning checkmate patterns and developing board vision especially appealing for students. It helps learners see the chessboard long before they are expected to calculate moves.
There are no questions like “Find the checkmate in two or three moves.” And this is important because beginners often face cognitive overload. Many students struggle because they are asked to calculate before they can visualise. With ENIGMAT, they are learning to see the board first.
Understanding ranks, files, diagonals, and piece influence is not intuitive. Many students memorise rules but struggle to apply them in real positions. With ENIGMAT, students must observe how pieces control squares, how lines interact, and whether the king has any possible escape. Without realising it, they are learning the language of chess.
Through repetition and visual exploration, students begin to:
- Recognise horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines
- Understand piece control rather than just piece movement
- Distinguish clearly between check and checkmate
- Notice escape squares and defensive resources
Students learn by discovering what works and what doesn’t work, and learn through trial and error.
Whatever subject we teach, we, educators, are there to help children with guided questions to learn how to think and ask the right questions for themselves. We model those questions as many times as needed because we want them to develop their logical reasoning and metacognitive skills to use them independently. I believe the concept of checkmate to learn and understand is made easy and fun with ENIGMAT.
If you want to buy the game, go to the ENIGMAT website and follow ENIGMAT on Facebook, Instagram
A big shout-out as well to Nicolas from desmaths.fr, who made ENIGMAT available to play online (click on the image below). If you are fortunate enough to have a smart board at your school, the online version can be a great whole-class tool to demonstrate and discuss key concepts related to checkmate.
That said, I strongly recommend using the physical, tactile, hands-on version of ENIGMAT whenever possible. Manipulating the boards with their fingers allows children to fully immerse themselves in the problem-solving process, supporting deeper focus, exploration and understanding.
Try online: →
Do you have a lesson activity that students love and that works well in real classrooms?
We want to hear about it!