Winning blow: pawn to b6 (b5·8)
c9-18668naming tag (square·N)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 1470 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king d1, queen b2, rook e1, bishop c3, knight f2 c6, pawn c2 d2 e2 f4 h4 a5 b5.
Black: king a8, queen g8, rook g2, knight c8 e8, pawn c4 f5 d6 e7 h7.
13 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. b6 Kb7 24. a6+ Kxc6 25. b7
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to b6 keeps the pressure (+11.3).
- Spot on — pawn to a6 (+11.9).
- Precise: pawn to b7 is the top choice (+11.2).
- You win decisive material (+11.2).
- If instead Kb7, then a6+ and you stay on top.
Types in this puzzle
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 #495.
SP-495 · ThroneGuard — Both knights start on inner files (b–g) while the king sits centrally on d or e — one of 204 positions filed here.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on b1 and f1, the queen on a1.
The kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king, from d1 to g1.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
The pawn on d2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 560.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 72 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +20 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #495Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 011 · SP-495
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