Winning blow: pawn to e5 (f4·27)
c9-12191naming 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 1560 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
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 b2, queen f3, rook h1 g5, bishop a3, knight b3, pawn a2 c2 d3 c4 f4.
Black: king b8, queen h2, rook d8 e8, bishop d7, knight e5, pawn c5 f5 b6 a7 c7 h7.
11 white and 12 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (30 against 31; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b2, the black king on b8.
It is White to move on move 28, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, h.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28. fxe5 Qxe5+ 29. Kb1 Qd6 30. Rxh7
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e5 keeps the pressure (+3.3).
- king to b1 develops smoothly.
- Precise: rook to h7 is the top choice (+3.5).
- You win a piece — the knight.
- If instead Qxe5+, then Kb1 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 28. fxe5 — pawn to e5 (capture)
- Qxe5+ — queen to e5 (capture) with check
- 29. Kb1 — king to b1
- Qd6 — queen to d6
- 30. Rxh7 — rook to h7 (capture)
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.
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 #95.
SP-95 · ThroneScout — King in the middle of the rank, with a knight already committed to the corner.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and e1, the queen on f1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: a2, b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 864.
The engine's main line opens with g3.
Morozov Balance Index: 13 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +41 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #95Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 011 · SP-95
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