Chess960 tactic on f8 (f7)
c9-15487naming 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: 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 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.
This is a forced mating attack. Start from the enemy king: which of its squares are already covered, and which move takes away the rest while keeping the king in check? Forcing moves — checks and captures — are what turn an attack into mate.
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.
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 f7, rook e8, bishop b2 h5, pawn a2 f2 g2 b3.
Black: king h6, queen a5, bishop a8 d8, knight f8, pawn d4 g5 d6 f6 a7 b7.
9 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 24 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on g1, the black king on h6.
It is White to move on move 27, with 42 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, e, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d.
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
27. Qxf8+ Kxh5 28. Qf7+ Kg4 29. Re4+ Kf5 30. Qh7#
Why it works
- Best move. queen to f8 is exactly what the engine plays (#3).
- Well found: queen to f7 (#2).
- Precise: rook to e4 is the top choice (#1).
- Best move. queen to h7 is exactly what the engine plays (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 4.
- If instead Kxh5, then Qf7+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 27. Qxf8+ — queen to f8 (capture) with check
- Kxh5 — king to h5 (capture)
- 28. Qf7+ — queen to f7 with check
- Kg4 — king to g4
- 29. Re4+ — rook to e4 with check
- Kf5 — king to f5
- 30. Qh7# — queen to h7 and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
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.
Decoy
A sacrifice lures the king or a piece onto a fatal square.
A decoy is the mirror image of deflection: you sacrifice to drag the king or a piece onto a fatal square. The classic is a queen or rook sac whose capture pulls the king into a knight fork, a discovered check or mate. Find the square where the target will be hit, then find the offer it cannot refuse. Calculate to the very end — a decoy only works when the follow-up is forced.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #113.
SP-113 · RampartGuard — A wing king (b/g) with no knight on the a- or h-file.
The king starts on g1, the rooks on e1 and h1, the queen on c1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: a2.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 843.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 16 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +39 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #113Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 015 · SP-113
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