Winning blow: king to h1 (g2·2)
c9-23857naming 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, bishop a1 a6, knight e4, pawn a2 e2 f2 f3 f6 h6.
Black: king f7, rook h1, bishop f4, knight b6 e6, pawn c5 g6 a7 h7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 22.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (15 against 18; 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 f7.
It is White to move on move 22, with 19 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 6 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): b, d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, g.
White hold the bishop pair, an edge in open lines. The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
22. Kxh1 Bxh6 23. Nd6+ Kf8 24. e3 c4 25. Nxc4
Why it works
- Great move! king to h1 keeps the pressure (+2.9).
- Spot on — knight to d6 (+3.1).
- A natural move: pawn to e3.
- Best move. knight to c4 is exactly what the engine plays (+3.2).
- You win a piece — the rook.
- If instead Bxh6, then Nd6+ and you win the rook.
Move by move
- 22. Kxh1 — king to h1 (capture)
- Bxh6 — bishop to h6 (capture)
- 23. Nd6+ — knight to d6 with check
- Kf8 — king to f8
- 24. e3 — pawn to e3
- c4 — pawn to c4
- 25. Nxc4 — knight to c4 (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.
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 #672.
SP-672 · ThroneGuard — King on a central file (d/e) with both knights on inner files — the classic-type setup.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on c1.
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.
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 479.
The engine's main line opens with d4, 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 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #672Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-672
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