White 60 vs Black 216

The two setups

White: setup #60 N B N R Q K B R

King on the f-file, rooks on d, h, queen on the e-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 60 gives White +0.22 (Morozov Balance Index, 400M nodes).

Black: setup #216 N B Q R B K N R

King on the f-file, rooks on d, h, queen on the c-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 216 gives White +0.32 (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 57.

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 same corridor is required at every deeper budget (8 G, 16 G) at which the pair has been evaluated.

The shallow rungs wandered between -23 and +20 cp before settling — a reminder that quick engine checks overstate imbalances, and why the ladder goes deep.

For comparison, in symmetric play setup 60 gives White +0.22 and setup 216 gives White +0.32: 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 c3, and 3 first moves are within 10 cp of it.

Along the engine's main line (29 moves) the evaluation stayed within ±21 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 10, Black won 0 (White scored 50.0%).

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 stays within the ±5 cp corridor up to 4 000 000 000 nodes.

Independent engines, run on the same position:

• Berserk 14: -2
• Lc0 0.32.1: 0

Independent confirmations: 3 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 +92, Black +112, difference -20. 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, 10 draws, 0 Black wins, White scored 50.0%.

Best first moves

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

Main-line play-out

29 moves, 5 000 000 nodes per half-move. Largest |evaluation| 21 cp, mean 7.0 cp, final 0 cp.

Engine self-play

10 games at 500 000 nodes per move: White won 0, drawn 10, Black won 0 — White scored 50.0%. Average length 34.4 moves.

1. c3 c5 2. f3 d5 3. d4 c4 4. e4 dxe4 5. fxe4 Nf6 6. Bf2 O-O 7. Nc2 Qe6 8. e5 Nd5 9. Ne3 Nab6 10. O-O f6 11. Bg3 Bg6 12. Bxg6 hxg6 13. Nxd5 Qxd5 14. Ne2 fxe5 15. Rxf8+ Kxf8 16. Qd2 Kg8 17. Qc2 Kh7 18. Kh1 e4 19. Bxb8 Rxb8 20. Ng3 e3 21. Qe2 Qe6 22. Rf1 Kg8 23. Qf3 Nd5 24. Kg1 g5 25. Ne4 g4 26. Qg3 Re8 27. Nc5 Qg6 28. Qe5 e6 29. Nxb7 Qd3 30. Nc5 Qd2 31. Qg5 Nf6 32. Qf4 Re7 33. Qb8+ Kh7 34. Qf4 Kg8 35. Qb8+ Kh7 36. Qf4

1. c4 Nb6 2. c5 Nc4 3. Nd3 c6 4. f4 d5 5. Nc2 e5 6. fxe5 Nxe5 7. Nxe5 Bxe5 8. Bd4 Qf5+ 9. Qf2 Qxf2+ 10. Bxf2 Bd7 11. Nd4 Nf6 12. Nf3 Bxb2 13. Bc2 Ne4 14. Rb1 Ba3 15. Bxe4 dxe4 16. Ne5 Be6 17. Rxb7 O-O 18. Rxa7 Bb2 19. Nxc6 Rxd2 20. O-O e3 21. Bxe3 Rxe2 22. Bd4 Bd5 23. Rf2 Re1+ 24. Rf1 Re2 25. Rf2 Re1+ 26. Rf1

Play it in the CH960 app

Open this page on a phone with the CH960 app installed, or find pair 60 / 216 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): nbqrbknr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NBNRQKBR w DHdh - 0 1

Mirror twin: White 908 vs Black 653 — a different position (castling squares are fixed), not evaluated by the search.

Current place in the live balance rating: 258.