Queen and rook tactics Chess Puzzles

By the numbers

queen and rook tactics puzzles: the numbers

There are 45,904 queen and rook tactics puzzles, solved 59,822,381 times in total. The median rating is 1043.

How hard are they?

Often combined with

Endgame tactics · 45,904Checkmate · 25,602Mate in 2 · 13,630Mate in 1 · 9,717Back-rank mate · 8,838Fork · 5,014Advanced pawn · 4,535Skewer · 3,137

Which openings produce them?

Sicilian Defence · 8Scotch Game · 5Ruy Lopez · 4Italian Game · 4French Defence · 3Scandinavian Defense · 3Philidor Defence · 3

Counts computed from the full puzzle set.

How the solutions work · counted by a rules engine

What a typical queen and rook tactics solution looks like

Sample: 2,353 queen and rook tactics puzzles (5.1% of all 45,904).

21.3% need 1 solver move, 52.3% need 2 solver moves, 20% need 3 solver moves, 4.9% need 4 solver moves, 1.4% need 5 or more solver moves. Median rating: 840 for the shortest solutions, 2177 for the longest.

69.2% open with a rook move. The first move captures in 20% and gives check in 85.8%; 56.2% end in checkmate, 14.2% involve a sacrifice, 48.9% 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 2,353 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: d8 (11.2%), e8 (9.9%), f8 (6.8%), c8 (6.8%), b8 (4.8%).

Counted from the same 2,353-puzzle sample. Squares under 1% are left blank.