Winning blow: bishop to a2
c9-16958Opens 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 1110 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 d1, rook h1, bishop b1 e1, pawn b2 d2 e2 g2 h2 f4.
Black: king e6, rook c4 h8, knight f6, pawn g6 e7 f7 h7.
10 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 17 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on d1, the black king on e6.
It is White to move on move 18, with 22 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
18. Ba2 Rb8 19. Bxc4+
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to a2 keeps the pressure (+5.5).
- Spot on — bishop to c4 (+5.8).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rb8, then Bxc4+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 18. Ba2 — bishop to a2
- Rb8 — rook to b8
- 19. Bxc4+ — bishop to c4 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
Endgame tactic
Tactics live in the endgame too — strike while material is scarce.
Tactics do not retire when the queens come off: forks, pins and double attacks live on in the endgame. With so little material left, every tactical loss is almost always decisive. The signs are the usual ones — undefended pieces, king and piece on one line, a pawn about to promote. Even in a "technical" ending, scan for a shot before every move, both yours and your opponent's.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #680.
SP-680 · ThroneGuard — The king starts in the middle of the back rank, on d or e, and neither knight begins in a corner.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on a1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: g2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 477.
The engine's main line opens with Nf3, bringing the knight out to f3.
Morozov Balance Index: 11 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +42 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #680Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-680
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