Winning blow: king to f4 (e3)
c9-23749naming 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 1560 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 e3, queen d7, rook c1, knight e1, pawn a2.
Black: king f8, queen f4, bishop a3, knight f7 e8, pawn e6 a7 h7.
5 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (18 against 21; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on e3, the black king on f8.
It is White to move on move 29, with 3 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 1 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, c, d, f, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: e, h.
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
29. Kxf4 Bxc1+ 30. Kg3 Be3 31. Qxe6
Why it works
- Great move! king to f4 keeps the pressure (+4.5).
- Well found: king to g3 (+4.2).
- Precise: queen to e6 is the top choice (+4.4).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Bxc1+, then Kg3 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 29. Kxf4 — king to f4 (capture)
- Bxc1+ — bishop to c1 (capture) with check
- 30. Kg3 — king to g3
- Be3 — bishop to e3
- 31. Qxe6 — queen to e6 (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.
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.
King evacuation
The king walks out of the danger zone on its own feet.
King evacuation: when the shelter collapses, the king walks out of the attack on his own feet — sometimes across half the board. A series of precise king moves carries him out of the firing zone, and the enemy attack dissolves. The signs: no direct defense works, but there is a route over unattacked squares to a quiet corner. Calculate the entire journey in advance — a king stranded halfway usually dies there.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #816.
SP-816 · ThroneScout — King on a central file (d/e) with a knight starting on the rim (a/h).
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and g1, the queen on f1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 143.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 65 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +22 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #816Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 011 · SP-816
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