Winning blow: pawn to e6 (d5·9)
c9-12885naming 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 c1, rook d1 f1, bishop a1 d3, knight f6, pawn a2 c2 b3 g3 e4 d5.
Black: king e7, rook e6 d8, bishop g7 a8, knight f7 c8, pawn b4 a5 g5 c7.
12 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 21.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (25 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on c1, the black king on e7.
It is White to move on move 21, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): f, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
21. dxe6 Rxd3 22. cxd3
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e6 keeps the pressure (+5.6).
- Spot on — pawn to d3 (+5.7).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxd3, then cxd3 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 21. dxe6 — pawn to e6 (capture)
- Rxd3 — rook to d3 (capture)
- 22. cxd3 — pawn to d3 (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.
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 #642.
SP-642 · ThroneScout — King on a central file (d/e) with a knight starting on the rim (a/h).
The king starts on d1, the rooks on b1 and e1, the queen on g1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on c2, d2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 215.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 75 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +19 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #642Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 004 · SP-642
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