Winning blow: rook to e7 (e1·9)
c9-22895naming 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 1200 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 b1, queen c3, rook e1, bishop a2, knight g2, pawn c2 a3 g4 c5.
Black: king g7, queen f6, rook d8, bishop f4 c8, knight f3, pawn b5 a7 h7.
9 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 2 points of material (24 against 26; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on b1, the black king on g7.
It is White to move on move 27, with 39 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, f — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: b, h.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 2 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27. Re7+ Kg6 28. Nxf4+ Kg5 29. Rg7+ Qxg7 30. Qxg7+
Why it works
- Great move! rook to e7 keeps the pressure (+6.6).
- Well found: knight to f4 (+6.6).
- Precise: rook to g7 is the top choice (+6.9).
- Best move. queen to g7 is exactly what the engine plays (+7.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kg6, then Nxf4+ and you win the bishop.
Move by move
- 27. Re7+ — rook to e7 with check
- Kg6 — king to g6
- 28. Nxf4+ — knight to f4 (capture) with check
- Kg5 — king to g5
- 29. Rg7+ — rook to g7 with check
- Qxg7 — queen to g7 (capture)
- 30. Qxg7+ — queen to g7 (capture) with check
Types in this puzzle
Absolute pin
A piece is pinned against its king — it cannot legally move.
An absolute pin freezes a piece on the line between its own king and your long-range attacker: moving it is simply illegal. The pattern is three units on one straight line — your bishop, rook or queen, an enemy piece, and the enemy king behind it. A pinned piece neither attacks nor defends anything: treat it as if it were off the board. Pile up on it, ideally with a pawn, because running away is against the rules.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Check chase
Every move is a check — the king is chased into losing ground.
In a check chase every one of your moves is a check, so the opponent never gets a free second. The king is herded across the board until it loses a piece or walks into a decisive blow. Such lines are the easiest to calculate: each check allows only a handful of replies, so try them all. Make it a habit to start calculating any sharp position with the checks — they are the most forcing moves on the board.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #868.
SP-868 · ThroneScout — A knight starts on the edge (a/h) and the king sits centrally on d or e; the mirror twin stays in this family too.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and f1, the queen on a1.
The kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king, from e1 to g1.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: g2, h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 94.
The engine's main line opens with Ng3, bringing the knight out to g3.
Morozov Balance Index: 0 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +75 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
In 50 self-play games White scored 59.0% (95% CI 45.2–71.5%).
Explore position #868Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-868
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