Clearance Puzzles: Challenging Level

By the numbers

clearance puzzles at challenging level: the numbers

There are 21,924 clearance puzzles at challenging level, solved 63,314,073 times in total. The median rating is 1805.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 13,214Endgame tactics · 7,548Sacrifice · 7,392Checkmate · 3,793Pin · 3,375Kingside attack · 2,616Fork · 2,424Mate in 2 · 1,960

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 759French Defence · 415Italian Game · 267Queen's Pawn Game · 265Caro–Kann Defence · 243Scandinavian Defense · 198Ruy Lopez · 172Queen's Gambit Declined · 162

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 challenging level (9.1% of all 21,924).

32.5% need 2 solver moves, 53% need 3 solver moves, 12% need 4 solver moves, 2.4% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 1802 for the shortest solutions, 1814 for the longest.

28.7% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 45.4% and gives check in 50.1%; 17.7% end in checkmate, 45.2% involve a sacrifice, 54.9% 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 (8.7%), g6 (5%), f7 (3.8%), e6 (3.7%), e7 (3.6%).

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