Winning blow: king to e4
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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 1060 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 d3, rook f1, bishop e3, knight d5, pawn a2 h2 b3 c4 c5 f5.
Black: king f7, rook e4 d8, knight d4 g7, pawn h3 e5 a7 b7 d7.
10 white and 10 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 25.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 4 points of material (17 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d3, the black king on f7.
It is White to move on move 25, with 33 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, e.
The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
25. Kxe4 Re8 26. f6 Nge6 27. Kxe5
Why it works
- Great move! king to e4 keeps the pressure (+2.7).
- pawn to f6 develops smoothly.
- Precise: king to e5 is the top choice (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Re8, then f6 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 25. Kxe4 — king to e4 (capture)
- Re8 — rook to e8
- 26. f6 — pawn to f6
- Nge6 — knight to e6
- 27. Kxe5 — king to e5 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
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.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #412.
SP-412 · BastionGuard — Both knights begin inside the board while the king stands on c or f; a position and its mirror twin share this family.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on a1 and h1, the queen on c1.
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.
The bishops stand on b1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a7 once the c- and f-pawns step aside.
The pawn on e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 748.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 65 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +22 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #412Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 006 · SP-412
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