Chess960 tactic on e8 (f6)
c9-11540naming tag (square·N)The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate: a forcing sequence that ends the game — the king has no escape.
Mate in 4: a forced checkmate in four moves — every reply is covered.
Difficulty 2400 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king f1, queen e5, rook e1, bishop b1 h6, knight g3 f6, pawn a2 e2 f2 h2 b4 g4 d5.
Black: king f7, queen e8, rook g8, bishop d7, knight h3, pawn c4 g5 a6 b6 h7.
14 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. Nxe8 Rg6 25. Bxg6+ hxg6 26. Qg7+ Kxe8 27. Qf8#
Why it works
- Best move. knight to e8 is exactly what the engine plays (#3).
- Spot on — bishop to g6 (#2).
- Precise: queen to g7 is the top choice (#1).
- Best move. queen to f8 is exactly what the engine plays (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 4.
- If instead Rg6, then Bxg6+ and you win the queen.
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
Mate in 4+
A long forced mating combination.
Mate in four or longer is a marathon of forcing moves where the grip must never loosen. The tools are the same: checks, double threats and sacrifices that deny the opponent a single free tempo. Do not juggle the whole tree at once — walk the main line all the way to mate first, then verify the side branches. If somewhere the defender finds one quiet move that holds, your very first move was wrong.
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 #292.
SP-292 · BastionScout — A knight on the a- or h-file, king on c or f — the mirror twin lands here as well.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on e1 and g1, the queen on a1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
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 382.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 19 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +49 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
In 50 self-play games White scored 51.0% (95% CI 37.6–64.3%).
Explore position #292Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 015 · SP-292
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