Fork Puzzles: Foundation Level

By the numbers

fork puzzles at foundation level: the numbers

There are 328,928 fork puzzles at foundation level, solved 278,993,305 times in total. The median rating is 978.

Often combined with

Endgame tactics · 202,477Middlegame tactics · 110,457Checkmate · 23,517Mate in 2 · 18,722Opening tactics · 15,994Back-rank mate · 6,532Attraction · 5,292Exposed king · 4,860

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 9,578Queen's Pawn Game · 3,802French Defence · 3,693Italian Game · 3,603Caro–Kann Defence · 3,528Queen's Gambit Declined · 2,581Scandinavian Defense · 2,295English Opening · 2,259

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical fork solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 fork puzzles at foundation level (0.6% of all 328,928).

85.6% need 2 solver moves, 13.5% need 3 solver moves, 1% need 4 solver moves. Median rating: 954 for the shortest solutions, 1141 for the longest.

50.6% open with a knight move. The first move captures in 20.8% and gives check in 95.2%; 7.2% end in checkmate, 8.5% involve a sacrifice, 48.4% 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: e7 (10.9%), e6 (6.6%), f6 (6.5%), f7 (6.1%), d5 (5.2%).

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