Why is chess.com obsessed with this checkmating pattern?

Sort:
Avatar of EnCroissantCheckmate

I see this checkmating pattern ALL THE TIME while playing Puzzle Rush. There have only been a handful of Puzzle Rush/Puzzle Battle attempts where I haven't seen something like this come up as a puzzle. 

There aren't nearly as many puzzles for other common patterns (such as Scholar's Mate, Philidor's Mate, etc.). Why is chess.com only obsessed with this one?

Avatar of Memedbuilds

Idk why but in puzzles I see this pattern a million times. #ccobssesed

Avatar of Memedbuilds

This puzzles occur even if ur rating is 2000 what would u call that

Avatar of EnCroissantCheckmate
ChessPrix2314 wrote:

Hmm i suppose so beginner can do puzzle rush more better or something?

Even simple patterns like these ones don't appear nearly as often.

 
 

 

Avatar of Irongine

The reason why this is common is this is the back rank mate, which is both self explanatory and a killer checkmate for new players who get a bit too agressive and leaves their castled king in a corner without a solid exit plan.
Once it's late game and back rank mate is a possibility, Move your pawn to create a lan escape route.

Here, because white created a escape route back rank checkmate is not possible.

 

Avatar of EnCroissantCheckmate
Irongine wrote:

The reason why this is common is this is the back rank mate, which is both self explanatory and a killer checkmate for new players who get a bit too agressive and leaves their castled king in a corner without a solid exit plan.
Once it's late game and back rank mate is a possibility, Move your pawn to create a lan escape route.

Here, because white created a escape route back rank checkmate is not possible.

 

Good point. I am just wondering why I don't see other common patterns nearly as often

Avatar of DrSpudnik

....or move your king toward the center (Kf1) where it has an exit if needed  and king centralization is a thing.

Avatar of streetflame

Yeah, the focus on the queen sacrifice back rank mate in low rated puzzles (especially in puzzle rush) is excessive. It's definitely important to learn, and I've used it in games, but it shouldn't be so overwhelmingly featured at the expense of other basic tactics.

Avatar of EnCroissantCheckmate
goldenbeer wrote:
Here is my brilliant game featuring a complex back ranked mate. It shows that it is really important to have the idea of back rank mate in mind:


https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/a-master-piece-q-r-and-bishop-sacrificed-to-deliver-checkmate

Wow! I have never seen such a checkmate before! It appeared the king was safe from a back rank mate, but that was just an illusion.

Avatar of woton

What I find strange is that what is essentially the same problem has so many different ratings.  In puzzle rush, the problems are supposed to get harder as the number of problems increases, but I usually see this pattern four or five non-consecutive times, each nearly-identical problem having a much higher rating than the last.

Avatar of EnCroissantCheckmate
woton wrote:

What I find strange is that what is essentially the same problem has so many different ratings.  In puzzle rush, the problems are supposed to get harder as the number of problems increases, but I usually see this pattern four or five non-consecutive times, each nearly-identical problem having a much higher rating than the last.

I know, right?

Avatar of Arnaut10

I agree, it appears almost every single time in both puzzle rush and puzzle battle. For me this is the easiest checkmate pattern which I solve waay quicker than others but its probably because I have seen it so many times (thank you chess.com). Puzzles in puzzle rush are selected by rating and low rated ones come first and puzzle by puzzle rating gets higher. They usually appear somewhere between 10-20 even tho they are quite easy to solve. That's probably because they aren't M1 or hanging pieces and have a higher rating. That would be my explanation and I could easily be wrong.

Avatar of woton

I just encountered five of these problems.  The ratings ranged from 521 to 907.  The pass rates ranged from 81% to 88%.  I would think that there should be more consistency in the ratings given the consistency in the pass rate.