Winning blow: rook to e8 (c8)
c9-16398naming 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 1150 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 e1, queen f3, rook c8, knight d3, pawn c2 d2 f2 e3.
Black: king e7, queen f6, rook a5, knight h2, pawn e6 d7 f7 h7.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 21 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on e1, the black king on e7.
It is White to move on move 27, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: h.
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
27. Re8+ Kxe8 28. Qxf6
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e8 keeps the pressure (+4.9).
- Well found: queen to f6 (+5.2).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kxe8, then Qxf6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 27. Re8+ — rook to e8 with check
- Kxe8 — king to e8 (capture)
- 28. Qxf6 — queen to f6 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Deflection
Force the defender away from its duty — then strike what it guarded.
Deflection forces the guard to leave its post: a sacrifice or exchange drags it away from the piece or square it protects. First find the critical defender — the piece whose absence makes the mate or the material win possible. Then find the move it cannot ignore, which is usually a capture. Do not be stingy: if removing the guard wins the queen or mates, the sacrifice pays for itself many times over.
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 #514.
SP-514 · ThroneGuard — A centre-file king with no knight on the edge; a position and its mirror twin always share this family.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on b1 and h1, the queen on d1.
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 f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 535.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 96 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +8 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #514Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-514
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