Winning blow: pawn to e6 (d5·10)
c9-13902naming 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 f1, rook c1 h1, bishop g3, knight a3 f5, pawn a2 b2 f3 d4 g4 d5 h5.
Black: king f7, queen e6, rook c8 d8, bishop b8, knight d3, pawn c4 c6 f6 a7 b7 e7 g7 h7.
13 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (26 against 33; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on f1, the black king on f7.
It is White to move on move 18, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 8. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, e.
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
18. dxe6+ Kxe6 19. Rxc4
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e6 keeps the pressure (+2.8).
- Spot on — rook to c4 (+2.8).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kxe6, then Rxc4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 18. dxe6+ — pawn to e6 (capture) with check
- Kxe6 — king to e6 (capture)
- 19. Rxc4 — rook to c4 (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 #156.
SP-156 · BastionScout — King off-centre on c or f with a knight starting on the rim (a/h).
The king starts on f1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on e1.
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.
The bishops stand on b1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a7 once the c- and f-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 BastionScout family; read right to left it becomes position 812.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 94 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +10 centipawns for White (depth 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #156Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 004 · SP-156
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