Clearance Puzzles: Advanced Level

By the numbers

clearance puzzles at advanced level: the numbers

There are 33,152 clearance puzzles at advanced level, solved 35,183,105 times in total. The median rating is 2307.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 20,633Endgame tactics · 11,425Sacrifice · 8,530Quiet move · 5,461Pin · 4,984Defensive move · 4,156Advanced pawn · 3,058Fork · 2,949

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 954French Defence · 460Italian Game · 437Caro–Kann Defence · 319Queen's Pawn Game · 315Scandinavian Defense · 270Queen's Gambit Declined · 191Ruy Lopez · 175

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical clearance solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 clearance puzzles at advanced level (6% of all 33,152).

18.6% need 2 solver moves, 45.9% need 3 solver moves, 22.2% need 4 solver moves, 13.3% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 2250 for the shortest solutions, 2536 for the longest.

24.5% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 34.6% and gives check in 39%; 4% end in checkmate, 31.8% involve a sacrifice, 53.4% have White to move.

How many moves does the solver need?

Which piece plays the key move?

What does the solver win?

Material balance along the whole line, counting every capture by both sides (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9):

How much is left on the board?

How it is counted: every puzzle in the sample is replayed move by move with a chess rules engine. A sacrifice means a piece that is captured on the very next ply and was worth more than what it captured itself (pawn 1, minor piece 3, rook 5, queen 9). Sample of 2,000 puzzles. Percentages are shares of the sample.

Where it happens

Where the key move lands

Where the solver’s first move ends, drawn from their own side (rank 1 is their back rank). Busiest squares: f6 (8.2%), e6 (5.1%), g5 (3.9%), g6 (3.9%), f5 (3.7%).

Counted from the same 2,000-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.