Winning blow: pawn to e5 (f4·19)
c9-15915naming 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 1200 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 c1, queen f2, rook c3, bishop b1, knight d2, pawn a2 b2 e4 f4 h4 g5.
Black: king c8, queen c6, rook d8, bishop e5, knight a4, pawn c5 f5 h5 g6 b7 e7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 24.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 26 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on c1, the black king on c8.
It is White to move on move 24, with 34 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c.
The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
24. fxe5 Nxc3 25. bxc3 f4 26. Bc2 Qe6 27. Qxc5+
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e5 keeps the pressure (+2.4).
- Well found: pawn to c3 (+2.3).
- A natural move: bishop to c2.
- Best move. queen to c5 is exactly what the engine plays (+2.2).
- You win a piece — the bishop.
- If instead Nxc3, then bxc3 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 24. fxe5 — pawn to e5 (capture)
- Nxc3 — knight to c3 (capture)
- 25. bxc3 — pawn to c3 (capture)
- f4 — pawn to f4
- 26. Bc2 — bishop to c2
- Qe6 — queen to e6
- 27. Qxc5+ — queen to c5 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Overload
One defender guards two things — it cannot do both jobs.
Overloading exploits a defender with two jobs at once — guarding a piece and covering a mating square, for instance. It cannot do both: your first strike forces it to handle one duty and abandon the other. Find the overworked piece by asking what happens to each of its charges if it gets distracted. Then hit one target and collect the other — an overloaded defender only pretends to defend.
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.
Remove the defender
Capture the guard first — then take what it protected.
Removing the defender is the straightforward plan: capture the guard first, then take what it guarded. Unlike deflection, the defender is not lured away — it is traded off or destroyed on the spot. Stare at the target you crave and ask who defends it, and whether that defender can be profitably eaten. Count the whole capture sequence, not just the first move — the trade must pay off at the end.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #276.
SP-276 · ThroneScout — King on a central file (d/e) with a knight starting on the rim (a/h).
The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and g1, the queen on h1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from e1 to c1.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on e2, f2 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 590.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 47 of 100 — class C — noticeable edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +27 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #276Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-276
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