Winning blow: bishop to g2 (f1)
c9-24119naming 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 e1, queen b2, rook h1, bishop f1 f4, knight h3 c5, pawn a2 b4 e4 h5.
Black: king d8, queen d6, rook h8, bishop b6 c8, knight e7 a8, pawn g2 b5 c6 f6 a7 g7 h7.
11 white and 14 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 18.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (30 against 33; 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 d8.
It is White to move on move 18, with 46 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 4 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: c, f, g.
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
18. Bxg2 Bxc5 19. Bxd6 Bxd6 20. h6 Rg8 21. hxg7
Why it works
- Great move! bishop to g2 keeps the pressure (+3.7).
- Well found: bishop to d6 (+3.6).
- A natural move: pawn to h6.
- Best move. pawn to g7 is exactly what the engine plays (+3.9).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Bxc5, then Bxd6 and you win the queen.
Move by move
- 18. Bxg2 — bishop to g2 (capture)
- Bxc5 — bishop to c5 (capture)
- 19. Bxd6 — bishop to d6 (capture)
- Bxd6 — bishop to d6 (capture)
- 20. h6 — pawn to h6
- Rg8 — rook to g8
- 21. hxg7 — pawn to g7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Decoy
A sacrifice lures the king or a piece onto a fatal square.
A decoy is the mirror image of deflection: you sacrifice to drag the king or a piece onto a fatal square. The classic is a queen or rook sac whose capture pulls the king into a knight fork, a discovered check or mate. Find the square where the target will be hit, then find the offer it cannot refuse. Calculate to the very end — a decoy only works when the follow-up is forced.
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 #214.
SP-214 · 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 h1, the queen on b1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from e1 to c1.
The bishops stand on c1 and f1; their long diagonals reach h6 and a6 once the d- and e-pawns step aside.
The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 646.
The engine's main line opens with e4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Morozov Balance Index: 69 of 100 — class B — balanced. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +21 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #214Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 008 · SP-214
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