Winning blow: queen to b7 (b1·2)
c9-20816naming 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 2060 ShuffleRating — expert level — few solve it at first try.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen b1, rook e1 g5, bishop d4, knight f2, pawn a2 d2 f3 g3.
Black: king g8, queen d6, rook a6, pawn c4 g6.
10 white and 5 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 36.
Solution & explanation
Main line
36. Qb7 Qe5 37. Rgxe5 Re6 38. Rxe6
Why it works
- Sensible development: queen to b7.
- Spot on — rook to e5 (#2).
- Precise: rook to e6 is the top choice (#1).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qf8, then Re8 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 #292.
SP-292 · BastionScout — A knight on the a- or h-file, king on c or f — the mirror twin lands here as well.
The king starts on f1, the rooks on e1 and g1, the queen on a1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the BastionScout family; read right to left it becomes position 382.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 19 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +49 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
In 50 self-play games White scored 51.0% (95% CI 37.6–64.3%).
Explore position #292Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 015 · SP-292
Similar puzzles
Free, no ads · Android 8.0+ · coming soon to Google Play