Winning blow: knight to g5 (h3·6)
c9-23569naming 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 g2, rook d1 h1, bishop b1, knight h3 g4, pawn b2 a3 c3 f3 e5.
Black: king e8, queen g5, rook f8 h8, bishop b8 c8, knight c7, pawn g3 d5 a7 b7.
11 white and 11 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 26.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 8 points of material (24 against 32; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g2, the black king on e8.
It is White to move on move 26, with 37 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 5 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, g.
Black hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 3 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
26. Nxg5 Bxg4 27. fxg4 Rh2+ 28. Kxg3 Rxb2 29. Bg6+
Why it works
- Great move! knight to g5 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: pawn to g4 (+4.0).
- Precise: king to g3 is the top choice (+3.8).
- Best move. bishop to g6 is exactly what the engine plays (+3.0).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Bxg4, then fxg4 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 26. Nxg5 — knight to g5 (capture)
- Bxg4 — bishop to g4 (capture)
- 27. fxg4 — pawn to g4 (capture)
- Rh2+ — rook to h2 with check
- 28. Kxg3 — king to g3 (capture)
- Rxb2 — rook to b2 (capture)
- 29. Bg6+ — bishop to g6 with check
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.
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.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #36.
SP-36 · RampartScout — King on the wing (b/g) with a knight on the rim (a/h) — the rarest family.
The king starts on g1, the rooks on f1 and h1, the queen on e1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartScout family; read right to left it becomes position 926.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 51 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +26 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #36Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-36
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