Winning blow: pawn to e7 (e6·10)
c9-18024naming 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 1250 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 e2, rook g1 d2, knight c3, pawn a2 b3 c4 e4 h4 e6 f6.
Black: king g8, queen e8, rook h7, pawn g4 c6 g6 a7 b7 f7.
11 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 20 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on e2, the black king on g8.
It is White to move on move 25, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: g.
The White king has 6 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25. e7 Rh8 26. Rd8 Kh7 27. Rxe8
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e7 keeps the pressure (+8.1).
- rook to d8 develops smoothly.
- Precise: rook to e8 is the top choice (+8.6).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Rh8, then Rd8 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 25. e7 — pawn to e7
- Rh8 — rook to h8
- 26. Rd8 — rook to d8
- Kh7 — king to h7
- 27. Rxe8 — rook to e8 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Queen trap
The strongest piece ventures too far — and cannot come back.
A queen trap catches the strongest piece after it ventures too far and finds no way home. The usual story is a queen grabbing a distant pawn — the classic poisoned pawn. The warning signs: the queen has few retreat squares, and enemy minor pieces cut them off one by one, gaining tempo with every move. Before your queen snacks on a pawn in enemy territory, count her escape routes — fewer than two means stay home.
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 #103.
SP-103 · BastionGuard — The king starts one file off-centre, on c or f, with neither knight in a corner.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on d1 and g1, the queen on a1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 850.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 80 of 100 — class A — most balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +17 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #103Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 009 · SP-103
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