Winning blow: knight to c8 (e7·2)
c9-08965naming tag (square·N)Opens in the app if installed, otherwise downloads the APK.
The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Winning tactic: there is a move that gains a decisive advantage — find it.
Difficulty 920 ShuffleRating — for beginners taking their first steps in Chess960 tactics.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
In Chess960 the pieces start on unfamiliar squares, so tactics appear earlier and from unusual angles. Do not trust classical patterns — read the actual lines of the bishops, the rooks and the queen from where they really stand in this position.
This position hides a concrete tactic that wins material or mates. Start with the most forcing candidate moves — checks, captures and threats — and calculate each to a clear end before choosing; the winning line is usually the one the opponent cannot meet.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen b5, rook d1 f1, bishop g5 a6, knight e7, pawn b2 e2 f2 h2 g3 c5.
Black: king f7, queen b8, rook c8 h8, bishop c7 a8, knight f6 e8, pawn a5 d5 h5 e6 g7.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 20.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (34 against 36; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on f7.
It is White to move on move 20, with 48 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: a, d.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
20. Nxc8 Qxb5 21. Bxb5
Why it works
- Great move! knight to c8 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: bishop to b5 (+3.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxb5, then Bxb5 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 20. Nxc8 — knight to c8 (capture)
- Qxb5 — queen to b5 (capture)
- 21. Bxb5 — bishop to b5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Overload
One defender guards two things — it cannot do both jobs.
Overloading exploits a defender with two jobs at once — guarding a piece and covering a mating square, for instance. It cannot do both: your first strike forces it to handle one duty and abandon the other. Find the overworked piece by asking what happens to each of its charges if it gets distracted. Then hit one target and collect the other — an overloaded defender only pretends to defend.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #484.
SP-484 · BastionGuard — Both knights begin inside the board while the king stands on c or f; a position and its mirror twin share this family.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on a1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from f1 to c1.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 574.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 14 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +40 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #484Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 004 · SP-484
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