Winning blow: rook to f8 (f1·7)
c9-09283naming tag (square·N)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 1200 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king d1, rook a1 f1, pawn b2 e2 h2 g3 c5 e5.
Black: king d7, queen f8, rook g7, knight b5, pawn e4 a5 d5 c6 e6 h6 a7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27. Rxf8 Ke7 28. Rb8 Rg5 29. Rb7+ Kd8 30. Rxa5
Why it works
- Great move! rook to f8 keeps the pressure (+3.1).
- Spot on — rook to b8 (+3.0).
- Precise: rook to b7 is the top choice (+3.7).
- Best move. rook to a5 is exactly what the engine plays (+3.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Ke7, then Rb8 and you win the queen.
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
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 #248.
SP-248 · ThroneScout — The king starts on d or e while at least one knight begins in a corner.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on f1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 621.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 31 of 100 — class C — noticeable edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +32 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #248Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-248
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