Exposed king Puzzles: Advanced Level

By the numbers

exposed king puzzles at advanced level: the numbers

There are 68,158 exposed king puzzles at advanced level, solved 78,954,628 times in total. The median rating is 2283.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 33,682Endgame tactics · 33,492Fork · 14,680Sacrifice · 11,714Advanced pawn · 10,906Attraction · 7,682Pin · 7,414Deflection · 7,175Defensive move · 6,781

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 742French Defence · 421Italian Game · 414Queen's Pawn Game · 280Caro–Kann Defence · 267King's Gambit · 223Scandinavian Defense · 200Indian Defence · 147

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical exposed king solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 exposed king puzzles at advanced level (2.9% of all 68,158).

52.1% need 3 solver moves, 29.7% need 4 solver moves, 18.2% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 2227 for the shortest solutions, 2477 for the longest.

30.6% open with a queen move. The first move captures in 27.2% and gives check in 58.2%; 7.6% end in checkmate, 31.5% involve a sacrifice, 54% 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: g6 (5.4%), f6 (4.9%), e6 (4.6%), h6 (4.3%), f5 (3.4%).

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