Chessboard Problems

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:

1. Check if the given chessboard is valid or not
2. Count Knights that can attack a given pawn in an N * N board
3. Check if a Rook can reach the given destination in a single move
4. Trap the King by one of the given Set of pieces

Chessboard Problems based on Brute force:

1. Check if any King is unsafe on the Chessboard or not
2. Check if a king can move a valid move or not when N nights are there in a modified chessboard
3. Number of cells a queen can move with obstacles on the chessboard
4. Check if a Queen can attack a given cell on chessboard
5. Find all the queens attacking king in a chess board
6. Maximum cells attacked by rook or bishop in given chessboard.
7. Count of rooks that can attack each other out of K rooks placed on a N*N chessboard

Chessboard Problems based on Mathematics:

1. Count of all possible ways to reach a target by a Knight
2. Number of ways to place 2 Queen in a N x N chessboard
3. Count the total number of squares that can be visited by Bishop in one move
4. Total position where king can reach on a chessboard in exactly M moves
5. Expected number of moves to reach the end of the board
6. Count ways to place Knights moving in L shape in chessboard

Chessboard Problems based on Recursion and Backtracking:

1. N Queen Problem
2. 4 Queen Problem
3. Printing Solution of N Queen Problem
4. The Knights Tour Problem
5. Count all possible position that can be reached by Modified Knight
6. Minimum queens required to cover all the squares of a chess board
7. Count all possible visited cells of a knight after N moves
8. 8 Queen Problem

Chessboard Problems based on Greedy:

1. Minimum swaps to build valid chess board
2. Chessboard Pawn-Pawn game
3. Find position of non-attacking Rooks in lexicographic order that can be placed on N*N chessboard
4. Maximum non-attacking Knights that can be placed on an N*M Chessboard
5. Maximum bishops that can be placed on N*N chessboard
6. Minimum Cuts can be made in the Chessboard such that it is not divided into 2 parts

Chessboard Problems based on BFS and DFS:

1. Knight Tour for maximum points
2. Number of blocks in a chessboard a knight can move to in exactly k moves
3. Minimum steps to reach target by a Knight | Set 2

Chessboard Problems based on Dynamic Programming:

1. Minimum steps to reach target by a Knight | Set 2
2. Ways to place K bishops on an N×N chessboard so that no two attack
3. 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:

1. N Queen using Branch and Bound

Chessboard Problems based on Hill climb with random neighbour:

1. N Queen Problem using hill climb with random neighbour method

Chessboard Problems based on Segment Tree:

1. Range and Update Query for Chessboard Pieces

Chessboard Problems based on Warnsdorff’s Algorithm:

1. Warnsdorff’s algorithm for Knight’s tour problem