Queenside attack Puzzles: Foundation Level

By the numbers

queenside attack puzzles at foundation level: the numbers

There are 42,155 queenside attack puzzles at foundation level, solved 32,408,744 times in total. The median rating is 946.

Often combined with

Checkmate · 35,521Middlegame tactics · 33,093Mate in 1 · 17,288Mate in 2 · 16,546Endgame tactics · 7,670Sacrifice · 2,431Hanging piece · 2,156Discovered attack · 2,143

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 2,415Scandinavian Defense · 1,674Queen's Pawn Game · 1,274Caro–Kann Defence · 808French Defence · 734Scotch Game · 490Indian Defence · 442Pirc Defence · 414

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical queenside attack solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 queenside attack puzzles at foundation level (4.7% of all 42,155).

40.6% need 1 solver move, 51.6% need 2 solver moves, 7.4% need 3 solver moves. Median rating: 818 for the shortest solutions, 1078 for the longest.

62.1% open with a queen move. The first move captures in 62.1% and gives check in 99.4%; 84.4% end in checkmate, 18.4% involve a sacrifice, 44.2% 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: c7 (16.4%), b7 (15.4%), d8 (13.2%), a7 (9.3%), a6 (9.1%).

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