Starting position #298
Back-rank setup: QNRKBBRN
SP-298 · 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 d1, the rooks on c1 and g1, the queen on a1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
The bishops stand on e1 and f1; their long diagonals reach a5 and a6 once the d- and e-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 373.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 2 Morozov Balance Index: 2 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +53 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 944 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band L — large edge · dynamics along the play-out: equalizing
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +56 → +40 → +29 → -3
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #373
- The king starts on d, the rooks on c and g
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 546 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to c4 (e2) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to f3 (g2·6) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: king to c1 (d1) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: knight to d6 (b5·5) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: knight to f6 (e4·8) — Chess960 specifics · 1010
- Winning blow: king to c2 (d1·18) — Chess960 specifics · 1250
- Winning blow: queen to b3 (b1) — Chess960 specifics · 1340
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to g8 (h7·20) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Mate in 3: queen to e5 (c7) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d6 (d5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 2060
This position appears in course day 60
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Commentary
Long castling swaps the king on d1 with the rook on c1. A knight sits in the corner on h1 with g3 as its only move, the second on b1. The bishops sit together on e1 and f1, the queen in the corner on a1. Among the pawns, h2 is the only one starting without a defender. White's edge here is one of the wider ones, +53 centipawns, and the line ends in a check: c4 f5 d4 e6 e3 Bh5+.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.