Winning blow: queen to g3 (d6)
c9-20607naming 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 1200 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king g2, queen d6, rook h1 b6, pawn e3 f3 d4 h4.
Black: king h7, queen g6, rook h5, pawn d5 a6 c6 f6 g7.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29. Qg3 Qc2+ 30. Qf2 Qg6+ 31. Kf1
Why it works
- Great move! queen to g3 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- queen to f2 develops smoothly.
- A natural move: king to f1.
- You reach a winning position (+4.3).
- If instead Qc2+, then Qf2 and you stay on top.
Types in this puzzle
Winning blow
Find the strike that wins material by force.
A winning blow is a forced material gain that does not fit a single textbook motif. The general tactical recipe applies: spot loose pieces, an awkwardly placed king, overloaded lines. Go through the forcing moves in order of violence — checks, captures, threats — because most combinations start with one of them. Do not judge by feel: calculate the concrete line until the outcome is beyond doubt.
Blocking save
Block the check with tempo — and turn the game around.
The blocking save: you interpose a piece against the check — not passively, but with tempo, so the blocker creates a threat of its own. Such a block turns defense into attack. Whenever you are checked, compare all three replies — capture, move the king, interpose — and among the interpositions hunt for the one that counterattacks. The mistake is automatically stepping aside with the king when an active block would have turned the game around.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #104.
SP-104 · RampartGuard — A b- or g-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on g1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on a1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 861.
The engine's main line opens with h4.
Morozov Balance Index: 59 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +24 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #104Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-104
Similar puzzles
Free, no ads · Android 8.0+ · coming soon to Google Play