Most common tactic motifs in the opening phase of chess On analyzing my games, I found that I usually miss tactics in the opening than during middlegame and endgame. To supplement my study by solving tactical problems based on motifs, it would be helpful if I understand the key motifs I must stress on. Hence the question below.
Based on different tactical motifs like fork, pin, deflection, double-attack, etc. what is the most common tactical motif during the opening phase statistically?
Opening puzzles
On Lichess it's possible to train opening related puzzles:
https://lichess.org/training/opening
Puzzles for other phases of the game are available as well:
https://lichess.org/training/themes
Keep in mind, that the puzzle selection will be only as good as the votes given by Lichess users. Also, as far as I know, it's not possible to select specific openings.
Statistics
Because of a question by @BCLC in the comments I found this link, where you can download all Lichess puzzles. I made a little table based on all puzzles tagged with &quot;opening&quot;. Actual motifs are marked in bold other tags in italic.
Remember, that the statistics will be only as good as the data. Apparently there is one puzzle tagged with &quot;opening&quot; and &quot;rookEndgame&quot;.




Tag
Count
Perc.




short
71723
74.27%


advantage
58328
60.40%


crushing
25978
26.90%


fork
20514
21.24%


long
11694
12.11%


oneMove
11204
11.60%


mate
9170
9.50%


hangingPiece
8307
8.60%


discoveredAttack
8110
8.40%


kingsideAttack
7507
7.77%


pin
6299
6.52%


mateIn2
4618
4.78%


trappedPiece
4150
4.30%


mateIn1
3597
3.72%


attackingF2F7
3451
3.57%


sacrifice
3412
3.53%


equality
3099
3.21%


intermezzo
2842
2.94%


defensiveMove
2683
2.78%


attraction
2003
2.07%


veryLong
1954
2.02%


deflection
1952
2.02%


capturingDefender
1605
1.66%


master
1042
1.08%


advancedPawn
1022
1.06%


clearance
892
0.92%


mateIn3
784
0.81%


skewer
741
0.77%


exposedKing
740
0.77%


quietMove
582
0.60%


doubleCheck
550
0.57%


interference
455
0.47%


queensideAttack
416
0.43%


smotheredMate
393
0.41%


backRankMate
212
0.22%


enPassant
177
0.18%


mateIn4
120
0.12%


castling
110
0.11%


masterVsMaster
91
0.09%


promotion
89
0.09%


bodenMate
57
0.06%


mateIn5
51
0.05%


xRayAttack
47
0.05%


superGM
35
0.04%


doubleBishopMate
28
0.03%


dovetailMate
20
0.02%


underPromotion
4
0.00%


anastasiaMate
3
0.00%


hookMate
1
0.00%


arabianMate
1
0.00%


rookEndgame
1
0.00%



Code
Here is the Kotlin snippet I used to generate the table:
val data = File(&quot;lichess_db_puzzle.csv&quot;).readText().trim().split('\n')
    .map { it.split(',')[7].split(' ') }.filter { it.contains(&quot;opening&quot;) }.flatten()
    .groupingBy { it }.eachCount().toList().sortedByDescending { it.second }
for (i in 1..data.lastIndex) {
    val t = if (data[i].first in listOf(&quot;advancedPawn&quot;, &quot;anastasiaMate&quot;, &quot;arabianMate&quot;, &quot;attackingF2F7&quot;, &quot;attraction&quot;, &quot;backRankMate&quot;, &quot;bodenMate&quot;, &quot;capturingDefender&quot;, &quot;clearance&quot;, &quot;defensiveMove&quot;, &quot;deflection&quot;, &quot;discoveredAttack&quot;, &quot;doubleBishopMate&quot;, &quot;doubleCheck&quot;, &quot;dovetailMate&quot;, &quot;exposedKing&quot;, &quot;fork&quot;, &quot;hangingPiece&quot;, &quot;hookMate&quot;, &quot;interference&quot;, &quot;intermezzo&quot;, &quot;kingsideAttack&quot;, &quot;mate&quot;, &quot;mateIn1&quot;, &quot;mateIn2&quot;, &quot;mateIn3&quot;, &quot;mateIn4&quot;, &quot;mateIn5&quot;, &quot;pin&quot;, &quot;promotion&quot;, &quot;queensideAttack&quot;, &quot;quietMove&quot;, &quot;sacrifice&quot;, &quot;skewer&quot;, &quot;smotheredMate&quot;, &quot;trappedPiece&quot;, &quot;underPromotion&quot;, &quot;xRayAttack&quot;, &quot;zugzwang&quot;)) &quot;**&quot; else &quot;*&quot;
    println(&quot;| %-24s | %10s | %11s |&quot;.format(&quot;${t}${data[i].first}${t}&quot;, &quot;${t}${data[i].second}${t}&quot;, &quot;${t}${&quot;%.2f&quot;.format(100.0 * data[i].second / data[0].second)}%${t}&quot;))
}