Starting position #33
Back-rank setup: BNNBQRKR
SP-33 · RampartGuard — King pushed to the b- or g-file, knights off the edges — 144 positions here.
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 f1 and h1, the queen on e1.
The king already stands on its castled square, so castling short moves only the rook, from h1 to f1.
A bishop starts in the corner on a1: it has a single diagonal, which the b-pawn unlocks, running out to h8.
The pawn on g2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 923.
The engine's main line opens with h4.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 16 Morozov Balance Index: 16 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +39 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 815 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band M — moderate edge · dynamics along the play-out: stable
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +47 → +47 → +44 → +26
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #923
- The king starts on g, the rooks on f and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 1279 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d5 (c4·8) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to b2 (a1·8) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: bishop to f6 (a1·8) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Winning blow: rook to g3 (e3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1110
- Attack on the uncastled king: rook to f2 (f1·6) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to h6 (e3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to f7 (h5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1320
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to f7 (g6·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1450
- Winning blow: queen to f7 (f5·5) — Chess960 specifics · 1650
- Chess960 tactic on h5 (h3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 2350
This position appears in course day 11
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Commentary
The queen is on e1 and the king on g1, so short castling moves the h1 rook to f1 and nothing else. The corner bishop on a1 has one diagonal, opened by the b-pawn, running to h8; the bishop on d1 has two, opened by the c-pawn and the e-pawn. The knights start on b1 and c1. On the second rank, g2 has only the king to defend it. The line in the dataset opens h4 h5, then d4 d5 b3 Nd7.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.