Epaulette mate Chess Puzzles

By the numbers

epaulette mate puzzles: the numbers

There are 22,647 epaulette mate puzzles, solved 38,945,730 times in total. The median rating is 1106.

How hard are they?

Often combined with

Checkmate · 22,647Endgame tactics · 13,007Mate in 1 · 12,404Middlegame tactics · 8,252Mate in 2 · 7,606Rook endgame tactics · 2,199Mate in 3 · 2,085Sacrifice · 1,577Opening tactics · 1,388Discovered check · 1,308

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 442French Defence · 329Queen's Gambit · 307Caro–Kann Defence · 231King's Gambit · 139Scandinavian Defense · 133Italian Game · 132

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical epaulette mate solution looks like

Sample: 1,157 epaulette mate puzzles (5.1% of all 22,647).

57.3% need 1 solver move, 30.7% need 2 solver moves, 9.9% need 3 solver moves, 1.4% need 4 solver moves, 0.7% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 955 for the shortest solutions, 2190 for the longest.

49.2% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 25.8% and gives check in 99.8%; 100% end in checkmate, 8% involve a sacrifice, 60.1% 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 1,157 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: f7 (10.7%), g7 (9.9%), f6 (6.1%), c7 (4.2%), e6 (4%).

Counted from the same 1,157-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.