Winning blow: knight to e7 (c6·6)
c9-19506naming 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 1700 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 b6, rook a1 f3, bishop c2, knight c6, pawn b2 a3 c3 g3 f4 h4 e5.
Black: king c8, queen h8, rook a6 f8, bishop c4, knight c7, pawn a4 b5 c5 h5 d6 g6 e7.
13 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 23.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 32 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 c8.
It is White to move on move 23, with 41 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: d.
The White king has 4 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
23. Nxe7+ Kd7 24. Qb7 Rb8 25. Nxg6 Rxb7 26. Nxh8
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e7 keeps the pressure (+3.1).
- Well found: queen to b7 (+3.3).
- Strong! knight to g6 is the sharp choice (+3.6).
- Great move! knight to h8 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- You reach a winning position (+3.6).
- If instead Kd7, then Qb7 and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 23. Nxe7+ — knight to e7 (capture) with check
- Kd7 — king to d7
- 24. Qb7 — queen to b7
- Rb8 — rook to b8
- 25. Nxg6 — knight to g6 (capture)
- Rxb7 — rook to b7 (capture)
- 26. Nxh8 — knight to h8 (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 #476.
SP-476 · 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 e1, the rooks on a1 and f1, the queen on h1.
The kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king, from e1 to g1.
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 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 684.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 55 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +25 centipawns for White (depth 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #476Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 013 · SP-476
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