Winning blow: king to h2 (g1·32)
c9-26215naming tag (square·N)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 1250 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
White to move — find the best continuation
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen e4, rook g7, knight g4, pawn d2 g2 a4 e5 c6 h6.
Black: king e8, rook b1 f8, bishop a2 e7, knight c8, pawn d4 a7 h7.
10 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 29.
Solution & explanation
Main line
29. Kh2 Rff1 30. Nf6+ Kd8 31. Qxd4+
Why it works
- Great move! king to h2 keeps the pressure (+5.8).
- Spot on — knight to f6 (+6.0).
- Precise: queen to d4 is the top choice (+6.4).
- You win decisive material (+6.4).
- If instead Rff1, then Nf6+ and you stay on top.
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.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #434.
SP-434 · RampartGuard — A b- or g-file king and two knights on inner files (b–g).
The king starts on g1, the rooks on b1 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.
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: c2.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 711.
The engine's main line opens with h4.
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 #434Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 009 · SP-434
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