Chessboard problems are defined as a class of puzzles that involve solving a problem based on a chessboard. These problems typically require participants to place or move chess pieces on the board following specific rules or constraints to achieve a particular objective.
Chessboard problems are often used as a fun and intellectually stimulating way to improve problem-solving skills, logical thinking, and algorithmic understanding.
Examples of chessboard problems include the Knight’s Tour and N-Queens problems, as mentioned earlier. Other types of chessboard problems may involve tasks like finding the shortest path for a chess piece to move from one square to another, determining if a specific square is reachable from another square by a particular chess piece, or even designing algorithms for chess-playing AI agents.
These problems are not only enjoyable challenges in themselves but also serve as a practical way to apply various programming techniques and data structures to solve complex puzzles. As a result, chessboard problems are popular in competitive programming, as they test participants’ ability to think critically, devise efficient algorithms, and handle complex board-based scenarios.
Popular Chessboard problems:
Here are some of the popular chessboard problems you should try
Basic Chessboard Problems:
- Check if the given chessboard is valid or not
- Count Knights that can attack a given pawn in an N * N board
- Check if a Rook can reach the given destination in a single move
- Trap the King by one of the given Set of pieces
Chessboard Problems based on Brute force:
- Check if any King is unsafe on the Chessboard or not
- Check if a king can move a valid move or not when N nights are there in a modified chessboard
- Number of cells a queen can move with obstacles on the chessboard
- Check if a Queen can attack a given cell on chessboard
- Find all the queens attacking king in a chess board
- Maximum cells attacked by rook or bishop in given chessboard.
- Count of rooks that can attack each other out of K rooks placed on a N*N chessboard
Chessboard Problems based on Mathematics:
- Count of all possible ways to reach a target by a Knight
- Number of ways to place 2 Queen in a N x N chessboard
- Count the total number of squares that can be visited by Bishop in one move
- Total position where king can reach on a chessboard in exactly M moves
- Expected number of moves to reach the end of the board
- Count ways to place Knights moving in L shape in chessboard
Chessboard Problems based on Recursion and Backtracking:
- N Queen Problem
- 4 Queen Problem
- Printing Solution of N Queen Problem
- The Knights Tour Problem
- Count all possible position that can be reached by Modified Knight
- Minimum queens required to cover all the squares of a chess board
- Count all possible visited cells of a knight after N moves
- 8 Queen Problem
Chessboard Problems based on Greedy:
- Minimum swaps to build valid chess board
- Chessboard Pawn-Pawn game
- Find position of non-attacking Rooks in lexicographic order that can be placed on N*N chessboard
- Maximum non-attacking Knights that can be placed on an N*M Chessboard
- Maximum bishops that can be placed on N*N chessboard
- Minimum Cuts can be made in the Chessboard such that it is not divided into 2 parts
Chessboard Problems based on BFS and DFS:
- Knight Tour for maximum points
- Number of blocks in a chessboard a knight can move to in exactly k moves
- Minimum steps to reach target by a Knight | Set 2
Chessboard Problems based on Dynamic Programming:
- Minimum steps to reach target by a Knight | Set 2
- Ways to place K bishops on an N×N chessboard so that no two attack
- Count of distinct Numbers that can be formed by chess knight in N moves on a mobile keypad
Chessboard Problems based on Branch and Bound:
Chessboard Problems based on Hill climb with random neighbour:
Chessboard Problems based on Segment Tree:
Chessboard Problems based on Warnsdorff’s Algorithm:
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