Starting position #3
Back-rank setup: BQNNRKRB
SP-3 · BastionGuard — King shifted to c or f, knights kept clear of the edges — 168 positions in all.
Move the pieces right on the board — full Chess960 rules, castle by dropping the king on the rook.
Position features
The king starts on f1, the rooks on e1 and g1, the queen on b1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: d2, h2.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 947.
The engine's main line opens with b4.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 72 Morozov Balance Index: 72 of 100 — class B — balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +20 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 278 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): +32 → +21 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #947
- The king starts on f, the rooks on e and g
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 1207 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to f5 (b1) — Chess960 specifics · 620
- Winning blow: knight to b8 (a6) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: queen to h6 (g6) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to f6 (a1·15) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: king to h3 (g3) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: queen to f7 (f6·5) — Chess960 specifics · 1290
- Mate in 3: queen to c5 (d6) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Mate in 3: knight to e8 (f6) — Chess960 specifics · 1760
- Mate in 3: rook to g7 (g6·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1990
- Winning blow: queen to c7 (h2·3) — Chess960 specifics · 2400
This position appears in course day 3
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Commentary
This is one of the setups where castling short simply swaps two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 change places. Both corners hold a bishop — a1 on the dark squares, h1 on the light ones — and each has exactly one diagonal, opened by the b-pawn and the g-pawn respectively, running to h8 and a8. The knights on c1 and d1 stand together in front of the queen on b1. Two pawns begin with no defender at all, on d2 and h2, the most this setup allows. The line in the dataset opens b4 b5, then e4, and castling appears as early as the fourth half-move: O-O. The line closes with g3 f5.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.