Clearance Puzzles: Developing Level

By the numbers

clearance puzzles at developing level: the numbers

There are 16,307 clearance puzzles at developing level, solved 65,990,751 times in total. The median rating is 1428.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 9,587Sacrifice · 6,367Endgame tactics · 6,032Checkmate · 5,386Mate in 2 · 3,405Kingside attack · 3,084Pin · 2,393Fork · 1,745Mate in 3 · 1,511

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 521French Defence · 259Queen's Pawn Game · 199Caro–Kann Defence · 194Queen's Gambit Declined · 151Italian Game · 143Scandinavian Defense · 124English Opening · 119

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 developing level (12.3% of all 16,307).

39.7% need 2 solver moves, 52.5% need 3 solver moves, 6.8% need 4 solver moves, 1% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 1419 for the shortest solutions, 1483 for the longest.

32.8% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 49.2% and gives check in 65%; 33.6% end in checkmate, 52% involve a sacrifice, 53.6% 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 (11.4%), f7 (7.6%), g6 (5.5%), e7 (5.1%), h7 (4.6%).

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