Starting position #102
Back-rank setup: QNBRNBKR
SP-102 · RampartGuard — King on the wing (b/g) with both knights on inner files.
Move the pieces right on the board — full Chess960 rules, castle by dropping the king on the rook.
Position features
The king starts on g1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on a1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
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 RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 854.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 98 Morozov Balance Index: 98 of 100 — class A — most balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: 0 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 22 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- In 50 self-play games White scored 53.0% (95% CI 39.5–66.1%).
- Balance band E — even · dynamics along the play-out: stable
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (64 half-moves): +39 → -13 → 0 → 0
- Deeper check (4 000 000 000 nodes, depth 55): +20 cp, +20 cp against the base run — not confirmed at depth · S — slight edge
- Sign verdict: White edge — the minus was noise
- Self-play v2: 100 games at 1 000 000 nodes per move — White scored 54.5% (95% CI 44.8–63.9%)
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #854
- The king starts on g, the rooks on d and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 773 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to b2 (a1·2) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to b8 (f4·8) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: rook to h8 (f8) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: pawn to c5 (c4·2) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Mate in 2: rook to g4 — Chess960 specifics · 1090
- Mate in 2: queen to h6 (e3·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1320
- Winning blow: bishop to e5 (b2·6) — Chess960 specifics · 1610
- Mate in 3: queen to d3 (b1) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Winning blow: queen to e4 (b1·4) — Chess960 specifics · 1870
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to e6 (e4·7) — Chess960 specifics · 2120
This position appears in course day 42
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Commentary
The engine values this starting position at exactly level — the rarest reading there is on the first move. The king already stands on g1 and the rook already stands on d1, so each castling move needs only one piece to travel. The queen begins in the corner on a1, the bishops on c1 and f1. The pawn on f2 is defended by the king alone. The main line opens d4 d5, then b3 e6 c4 Nf6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.