Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to e4 (b1·22)
c9-21826naming 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.
A piece strikes across the board from its Chess960 starting square.
Uncastled king: the enemy king is stuck in the centre — punish it before it castles.
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.
From some Chess960 setups a bishop or queen rakes a long diagonal straight from move one. Trace those long-range lines into the enemy camp: a single opened file or diagonal can create an immediate pin, skewer or mating threat.
An uncastled king in the centre is a standing target. Look for ways to open the central files and diagonals against it with checks and threats before it can shelter — every tempo the king spends in the middle is a chance for a combination.
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 c4, rook a1 h1, bishop b1 g1, knight d1, pawn a2 b2 d2 e2 f2 h4.
Black: king e8, queen g2, rook a8 h8, bishop g3, knight d8 f8, pawn h5 c6 f6 a7 b7 e7 g7.
13 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 9.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 1 points of material (34 against 35; 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 e8.
It is White to move on move 9, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 7. No file is fully open, so the heavy pieces have to be pried in. Half-open for White: c, g.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 0 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
9. Be4 Qxh1 10. Bxh1
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to e4 keeps the pressure (+5.0).
- Well found: bishop to h1 (+5.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qxh1, then Bxh1 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 9. Be4 — bishop to e4
- Qxh1 — queen to h1 (capture)
- 10. Bxh1 — bishop to h1 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Long-range opener
From its unusual home square a long-range piece strikes across the board.
The long-range opener: a bishop, rook or queen strikes across the whole board straight from its starting area. In Chess960 the long-range pieces sit on unfamiliar squares, and a single pawn move can uncover a shot deep into the enemy camp. In the opening, trace with your eyes the diagonals and files of every long-range piece — yours and theirs. The mistake is pushing a pawn without checking whose line you have just opened.
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 #508.
SP-508 · ThroneGuard — A centre-file king with no knight on the edge; a position and its mirror twin always share this family.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on a1 and h1, the queen on c1.
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.
The bishops stand on b1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a7 once the c- and f-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: g2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 556.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 34 of 100 — class C — noticeable edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +31 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #508Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 007 · SP-508
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