Winning blow: rook to g5 (g1·3)
c9-11281naming 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 2100 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king f1, rook g1 e4, bishop d4, knight d3 f6 d8, pawn f2 a3 b3 h3 c4.
Black: king h8, rook g7 f8, knight h4, pawn a5 b5 f5 g5.
12 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 34.
Solution & explanation
Main line
34. Rxg5 Rxg5 35. Rxh4+ Rh5 36. Rxh5+
Why it works
- Best move. rook to g5 is exactly what the engine plays (#4).
- Spot on — rook to h4 (#3).
- Precise: rook to h5 is the top choice (#2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxg5, then Rxh4+ and you stay on top.
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.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #609.
SP-609 · BastionScout — Off-centre king plus a rim knight (a/h): 168 positions carry this shape.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on b1 and g1, the queen on e1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the BastionScout family; read right to left it becomes position 251.
The engine's main line opens with b4.
Morozov Balance Index: 43 of 100 — class C — noticeable edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +28 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #609Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 015 · SP-609
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