Winning blow: queen to e5 (c5·3)
c9-13214naming 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.
Mate in 4: a forced checkmate in four moves — every reply is covered.
Winning tactic: there is a move that gains a decisive advantage — find it.
Difficulty 2120 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
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.
A mate in four is a longer forced net: each of your moves is a check or an irresistible threat, and the king is driven step by step to a square where it is finally trapped. Verify that the defender has exactly one reply at every branch.
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 g1, queen c5, rook h6, bishop b3, knight c6, pawn f2 g3.
Black: king h8, rook d7 c8, pawn f4 e6 a7 b7 h7.
7 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 7 points of material (22 against 15; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on h8.
It is White to move on move 36, with 51 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 2 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a, b, e, 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
36. Qe5+ Kg8 37. Qxe6+ Rf7 38. Qxf7+ Kh8 39. Rxh7#
Why it works
- Best move. queen to e5 is exactly what the engine plays (#3).
- Spot on — queen to e6 (#2).
- Precise: queen to f7 is the top choice (#1).
- Best move. rook to h7 is exactly what the engine plays (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 4.
- If instead Kg8, then Qxe6+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 36. Qe5+ — queen to e5 with check
- Kg8 — king to g8
- 37. Qxe6+ — queen to e6 (capture) with check
- Rf7 — rook to f7
- 38. Qxf7+ — queen to f7 (capture) with check
- Kh8 — king to h8
- 39. Rxh7# — rook to h7 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Corner mate
Driven into the corner, the king runs out of squares.
The corner mate catches a king driven into the corner, where it has only three neighboring squares — all of them taken away or blocked. The corner is the worst home for a king, because the attacker needs to control the fewest squares there. Herd the king toward the corner with checks and never let it slip back toward the center. Cut off the escape routes before the final check, and the mate practically assembles itself.
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 #200.
SP-200 · BastionGuard — A c- or f-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on f1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on a1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from f1 to c1.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 669.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 13 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +41 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #200Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 015 · SP-200
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