Starting position #214
Back-rank setup: NQBRKBNR
SP-214 · ThroneScout — A knight starts on the edge (a/h) and the king sits centrally on d or e; the mirror twin stays in this family too.
Move the pieces right on the board — full Chess960 rules, castle by dropping the king on the rook.
Position features
The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the queen on b1.
The queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king, from e1 to c1.
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 ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 646.
The engine's main line opens with e4, 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 69 Morozov Balance Index: 69 of 100 — class B — balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +21 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 311 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band S — slight edge · dynamics along the play-out: stable
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +43 → +53 → +43 → +13
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #646
- The king starts on e, the rooks on d and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 124 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d5 (e4·4) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d6 (e5·3) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to b6 (c5·20) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: queen to h8 (h7·4) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Attack on the uncastled king: rook to e1 (d1) — Chess960 specifics · 1110
- Winning blow: rook to d8 (d1·19) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: rook to d7 (d5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1250
- Castling-960 to the rescue on h8 (e8·2) — Castling-960 · 1340
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to c7 (e6) — Chess960 specifics · 1670
- Mate in 3: knight to f6 (e4·6) — Chess960 specifics · 2210
This position appears in course day 53
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Commentary
The rook already occupies d1, so long castling moves the king alone from e1. A knight is in the corner on a1 with b3 as its only move; the second, on g1, can go to f3 or h3. On the second rank, f2 is defended by the king alone — the same square that carries this role in the classical setup. The queen is on b1, the bishops on c1 and f1. The main line of the run opens e4 c5, then Nf3 e6 c3 Nf6 — a Chess960 setup that reaches a very familiar shape.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.