Starting position #120
Back-rank setup: NBQRBNKR
SP-120 · RampartScout — King on the wing (b/g) with a knight on the rim (a/h) — the rarest family.
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 c1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: e2.
The setup belongs to the RampartScout family; read right to left it becomes position 845.
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 14 Morozov Balance Index: 14 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +40 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 828 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band M — moderate edge · dynamics along the play-out: equalizing
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +47 → +19 → -2 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #845
- 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 453 days
Puzzles from this position
- Winning blow: pawn to g3 (f2) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to c6 (d5·26) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: queen to f4 (c1) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: queen to f4 (c1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Castling-960 to the rescue on h1 (g1) — Castling-960 · 1150
- Winning blow: rook to h8 (h1·8) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: queen to g4 (c8) — Chess960 specifics · 1340
- Mate in 3: knight to g6 — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Winning blow: bishop to c4 (d3·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1700
- Winning blow: knight to g5 (f7·4) — Chess960 specifics · 2060
This position appears in course day 23
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Commentary
Both castling moves are half-moves: the king already stands on g1, the rook already on d1. A knight begins in the corner on a1 with b3 as its only move; the knight on f1 has e3 and g3. The pawn on e2 starts with no defender at all, and g2 has only the king. The queen is on c1, the bishops on b1 and e1. The engine's main line opens d4 d5, then Bb4 Qd7 c4 dxc4 — the bishop steps out to b4 on the third half-move.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.