Sacrifice Puzzles: Advanced Level

By the numbers

sacrifice puzzles at advanced level: the numbers

There are 128,768 sacrifice puzzles at advanced level, solved 200,982,592 times in total. The median rating is 2261.

Often combined with

Middlegame tactics · 90,355Endgame tactics · 33,717Attraction · 33,491Fork · 22,873Kingside attack · 21,611Pin · 17,350Checkmate · 17,107Advanced pawn · 13,470

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 4,323French Defence · 1,875Italian Game · 1,634Caro–Kann Defence · 1,414Queen's Pawn Game · 1,411Scandinavian Defense · 1,149Queen's Gambit Declined · 847Indian Defence · 765

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical sacrifice solution looks like

Sample: 2,000 sacrifice puzzles at advanced level (1.6% of all 128,768).

13.4% need 2 solver moves, 46.2% need 3 solver moves, 24.6% need 4 solver moves, 15.9% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 2185 for the shortest solutions, 2434 for the longest.

37.2% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 53.2% and gives check in 45.9%; 12.2% end in checkmate, 76.5% involve a sacrifice, 55.9% 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: g7 (7.7%), f7 (7.4%), f6 (6.1%), g6 (5.4%), h7 (4.7%).

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