Winning blow: king to g6
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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 1110 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 h5, rook g1 g8, bishop d5, knight f5, pawn b2 f2 a4 d4 e4 h4.
Black: king d8, queen f4, rook h7, knight e8, pawn b5 a6 d6.
11 white and 7 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 28.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (22 against 20; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on h5, the black king on d8.
It is White to move on move 28, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. White are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
28. Kg6 Rxh4 29. Nxh4
Why it works
- Great move! king to g6 keeps the pressure (+4.2).
- Spot on — knight to h4 (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Rxh4, then Nxh4 and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 28. Kg6 — king to g6
- Rxh4 — rook to h4 (capture)
- 29. Nxh4 — knight to h4 (capture)
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.
Mate defense
Mate is threatened — parry it and stay on top.
Mate defense: your opponent is one move from mating you — but it is your turn, and that changes everything. Find the defense that kills the mating threat while keeping your advantage: often a check or a counter-threat that leaves no time for the mate. First name the exact square where the mate would land — otherwise you are defending blind. The mistake is playing a "defensive" move that does not actually remove the threat.
Defensive exchange
Trade off the attacker — the storm dies with it.
The defensive exchange: your opponent's attack runs on one specific piece — trade it off, and the storm dies down. Find the "engine" of the attack, the piece without which the mating threats stop working: usually the queen or an invading knight. Offer the trade even at a small cost — your king breathes, and the material comes back later. The mistake is greedily dodging the exchange and getting mated a pawn up.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #695.
SP-695 · ThroneGuard — King home on d or e, knights kept off the a- and h-files — the family of the standard starting array.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on a1 and g1, the queen on b1.
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.
A bishop starts in the corner on h1: it has a single diagonal, which the g-pawn unlocks, running out to a8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: f2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 450.
The engine's main line opens with c3.
Morozov Balance Index: 11 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +42 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #695Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-695
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