White 454 vs Black 318

The two setups

White: setup #454 R N B N K B Q R

King on the e-file, rooks on a, h, queen on the g-file; no bishop starts in a corner; the knights start on central files. Castling follows the Chess960 rule: king and rook end on the classical squares. In ordinary symmetric play setup 454 gives White +0.27 (Morozov Balance Index, 400M nodes).

Black: setup #318 N Q R K R B B N

King on the d-file, rooks on c, e, queen on the b-file; no bishop starts in a corner; the knights start away from the centre. Castling follows the Chess960 rule: king and rook end on the classical squares. In ordinary symmetric play setup 318 gives White +0.21 (Morozov Balance Index, 400M nodes).

Why the pair is balanced

At the deepest rungs (400M, 800M, 1.6B nodes) the evaluation is exactly 0.00 each time, reaching search depth 60.

Admission rule: |cp| ≤ 5 at four budgets up to 4 billion nodes, no one-sided drift along the ladder, and confirmation by two independent engines — Berserk and Lc0 — each below its own median on symmetric positions.

The shallow rungs wandered between -22 and +18 cp before settling — a reminder that quick engine checks overstate imbalances, and why the ladder goes deep.

For comparison, in symmetric play setup 454 gives White +0.27 and setup 318 gives White +0.21: with both sides on the same rank the first move is worth something. In this pair Black's own setup absorbs that edge completely.

White is not forced into a single path: the best first move is d3, and 2 first moves are within 10 cp of it.

Along the engine's main line (30 moves) the evaluation stayed within ±30 cp the whole way: the balance holds as the pieces come out, not only on move one.

Engine self-play agrees: 10 games, White won 0, drawn 9, Black won 1 (White scored 45.0%).

Verification ladder

Nine independent searches of the starting position, each with a larger node budget. Evaluation in centipawns from White's point of view.

Deep verification

The search ladder reaches 1.6 billion nodes; admission needs a 4-billion rung and two further engines on top of that. Beyond even that, every pair was re-checked at budgets up to ten times larger and in thousands of self-play games. This section shows what each check returned for this pair.

This pair held exactly 0.00 up to 1 600 000 000 nodes.

Independent engines, run on the same position:

• Berserk 14: +1
• Lc0 0.32.1: +8

Independent confirmations: 2 of 3. An engine counts as confirming when its reading of the pair is closer to equality than its own reading of a typical symmetric Chess960 position (+10 for Berserk, +18 for Lc0). Where only one engine confirms, the pair is balanced according to that engine alone, and this page says so.

Own weight of each setup, measured against the classical array: White -23, Black +20, difference -43. A balanced pair needs White's setup to be weaker by about the price of the first move.

Extended self-play: 10 games, 0 White wins, 9 draws, 1 Black wins, White scored 45.0%.

Best first moves

The 3 best first moves for White, searched together at 400 000 000 nodes.

Main-line play-out

30 moves, 5 000 000 nodes per half-move. Largest |evaluation| 30 cp, mean 7.9 cp, final 0 cp.

Engine self-play

10 games at 500 000 nodes per move: White won 0, drawn 9, Black won 1 — White scored 45.0%. Average length 35.4 moves.

1. g3 e5 2. e4 f6 3. d3 c6 4. f4 f5 5. Nbc3 fxe4 6. dxe4 Nb6 7. Bh3 O-O-O 8. a4 exf4 9. Bxf4 Bd6 10. Bg5 Nf7 11. Bxd8 Kxd8 12. Bg2 Be5 13. Qf1 Qd6 14. a5 Nd5 15. Nxd5 cxd5 16. Qf2 dxe4 17. c3 Qd3 18. Bf1 Qf3 19. Bg2 Qd3 20. Bf1 Qf3 21. Bg2

1. g3 c6 2. d3 e5 3. e4 O-O-O 4. Bh3 Nc7 5. f4 exf4 6. Bxf4 f6 7. Nd2 b6 8. a4 Ng6 9. Be3 Be6 10. Bxe6 Nxe6 11. a5 d5 12. axb6 axb6 13. Bxb6 dxe4 14. dxe4 Rd7 15. Ba7 Qb4 16. c3 Qb7 17. Be3 Ne5 18. Ra7 Qb8 19. Rxd7 Kxd7 20. Qf1 Bc5 21. Bxc5 Nxc5 22. Qf5+ Kc7 23. O-O Qb6 24. Qf2 Rd8 25. Nf3 Nxf3+ 26. Qxf3 Nxe4+ 27. Nf2 Ng5 28. Qf4+ Rd6 29. Kg2 Qxb2 30. Re1 Kd7 31. Qe3 Re6 32. Qa7+ Ke8 33. Qa8+ Ke7 34. Rxe6+ Nxe6 35. Qxc6 f5 36. h4 g6 37. Qf3 Kf6 38. Qd3 Qa2 39. Qf3 Qb2 40. Qe3 Qb7+

Play it in the CH960 app

Open this page on a phone with the CH960 app installed, or find pair 454 / 318 in the app's encyclopedia, then choose how to play.

• Local game — two players on one device, with a clock.
• With a mentor — a clearly labelled training bot with hints, at your level.
• Challenge a friend — an online game by link; both players get the same pair, colours swap on rematch.

Play this pair against the computer, right here Play a friend

FEN (Shredder, castling rights by rook files): nqrkrbbn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBNKBQR w AHce - 0 1

Mirror twin (the same position mirrored): White 694 vs Black 356.