Winning blow: pawn to d5 (d4·6)
c9-21566naming 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 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 e1, queen h2, rook c1 g1, bishop a1 a2, pawn f2 e3 b4 d4 g4 h4.
Black: king b6, queen h8, rook d8 g8, bishop a7 b7, knight d6, pawn a4 e4 e6 g6 h6 f7.
12 white and 13 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 19.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (31 against 34; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e1, the black king on b6.
It is White to move on move 19, with 38 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 6. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: a.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
19. d5 Qxa1 20. Rxa1
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to d5 keeps the pressure (+3.5).
- Well found: rook to a1 (+3.3).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxa1, then Rxa1 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 19. d5 — pawn to d5
- Qxa1 — queen to a1 (capture)
- 20. Rxa1 — rook to a1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
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.
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 #272.
SP-272 · 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 d1 and g1, the queen on h1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from e1 to c1.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 591.
The engine's main line opens with g3.
Morozov Balance Index: 1 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +58 centipawns for White (depth 42, 400 000 000 nodes).
In 50 self-play games White scored 62.0% (95% CI 48.2–74.1%).
Explore position #272Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-272
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