Winning blow: rook to h7 (h5·2)
c9-26524naming 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 1750 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
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 b1, queen h3, rook e1 h5, pawn b2 c2 a4.
Black: king d8, queen g7, bishop f8, knight e5 d6, pawn a5 b6 f6 b7.
7 white and 9 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 33.
The position in numbers
Material is level — 22 points of pieces on each side (pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9).
The white king stands on b1, the black king on d8.
It is White to move on move 33, with 40 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 4. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): d, e, g, h — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: f.
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
33. Rh7 Qg6 34. Rxe5 Qxh7 35. Qxh7
Why it works
- Great move! rook to h7 keeps the pressure (+3.6).
- Well found: rook to e5 (+3.7).
- Precise: queen to h7 is the top choice (+3.8).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Qg6, then Rxe5 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 33. Rh7 — rook to h7
- Qg6 — queen to g6
- 34. Rxe5 — rook to e5 (capture)
- Qxh7 — queen to h7 (capture)
- 35. Qxh7 — queen to h7 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Clearance
Clear your own piece out of the way — with tempo — for the decisive blow.
Clearance is about your own piece standing in the way of the decisive blow — so you move it aside, or even throw it away. The key is to clear with tempo: jump off with a check, a capture or a threat, giving the opponent no time to regroup. The telltale sign: you see a crushing queen or rook move, but one of your own pieces blocks the line or occupies the square. Do not cling to it — a clearance sacrifice usually costs less than a missed attack.
Quiet move
No check, no capture — yet this modest move decides the game.
A quiet move gives no check and takes nothing — yet it decides the game by creating an unstoppable threat or stealing the king's last square. This is the hardest class of moves: the eye hunts for loud blows while a modest shift does the winning. The clue: every forcing try runs into a defense, so seek the move that strengthens the threat or takes squares away. Train yourself to ask: what if I neither capture nor check, but quietly improve?
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #478.
SP-478 · ThroneGuard — A centre-file king with no knight on the edge; a position and its mirror twin always share this family.
The king starts on d1, the rooks on a1 and e1, the queen on h1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
The bishops stand on f1 and g1; their long diagonals reach a6 and a7 once the e- and f-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 676.
The engine's main line opens with Nc3, bringing the knight out to c3.
Morozov Balance Index: 24 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +35 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #478Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 013 · SP-478
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