Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e6 (c5·24)
c9-25545naming 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.
Mate in 2: the first move creates an unstoppable threat, the second delivers mate.
Uncastled king: the enemy king is stuck in the centre — punish it before it castles.
Difficulty 1320 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.
Mate in two usually opens with a forcing move — a check, a capture or an unstoppable threat — that strips the king of squares or defenders, so the follow-up mate becomes unavoidable. Look for the first move that leaves the opponent only losing replies.
An uncastled king in the centre is a standing target. Look for ways to open the central files and diagonals against it with checks and threats before it can shelter — every tempo the king spends in the middle is a chance for a combination.
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 d1, queen c3, rook c1 h1, bishop b1 f2, knight c5, pawn e2 g2 b3 f3 a4 d4 h4.
Black: king d8, queen a7, rook c8 h8, bishop f7 b8, knight d7 e8, pawn a5 d5 f5 h5 f6 b7 e7.
14 white and 15 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 14.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 3 points of material (35 against 38; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d1, the black king on d8.
It is White to move on move 14, with 42 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 7 pawns, Black 7. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c — natural highways for the rooks and queen.
The White king has 5 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
14. Ne6+ Bxe6 15. Qxc8#
Why it works
- Great move! knight to e6 keeps the pressure (#1).
- Well found: queen to c8 (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 2.
- If instead Bxe6, then Qxc8# and it is mate.
Move by move
- 14. Ne6+ — knight to e6 with check
- Bxe6 — bishop to e6 (capture)
- 15. Qxc8# — queen to c8 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Supported queen mate
The queen delivers mate face to face, protected by a friend.
The supported queen mate is the most common pattern of all: the queen lands next to the king and mates because a friendly piece or pawn protects her. The king is helpless — capturing is impossible, and the queen covers every neighboring square herself. Hunt for a protected square beside the enemy king: a knight, bishop or pawn eyeing it turns her invasion into mate. Verify one thing — that the square really is defended, or the king eats her.
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.
Mate in 2
A forced checkmate in two moves.
Mate in two: your move, any reply, then the mating blow. Start with the most forcing first moves — checks and sacrifices that shrink the opponent's options to almost nothing. Against every single reply you must have a mate ready, so check them all without exception. The common failure is analyzing the pretty defense and forgetting the boring one.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #684.
SP-684 · ThroneGuard — King on a central file (d/e) with both knights on inner files — the classic-type setup.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on c1 and h1, the queen on a1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a7 once the c- and f-pawns step aside.
The pawn on e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 476.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Morozov Balance Index: 21 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +36 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #684Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 010 · SP-684
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