Starting position #376
Back-rank setup: NBRKBRNQ
SP-376 · 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 f1, the queen on h1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
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: b2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 301.
The engine's main line opens with O-O-O, bringing the king out to c1.
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 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 267 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band S — slight edge · dynamics along the play-out: equalizing
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +13 → 0 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #301
- The king starts on d, the rooks on c and f
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 30 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to f4 (g3·3) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to b3 (a2·4) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to e3 (f2·12) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to b7 (a5·23) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to a6 (b7·4) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: knight to d7 (b8) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Winning blow: queen to e6 (d5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Mate in 2: queen to b6 (g1·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1450
- Winning blow: queen to e5 (e4·10) — Chess960 specifics · 1870
- Winning blow: rook to d8 (d6·6) — Chess960 specifics · 2240
This position appears in course day 32
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Commentary
White castles on move one here, long: O-O-O is the engine's first move, the king on d1 and the rook on c1 changing places. Black replies the same way, and the line runs O-O-O O-O-O f4 f5 d3 g6. Short castling moves the king alone, because the rook already stands on f1. A knight is in the corner on a1 with a single move, b3; the second knight is on g1. The bishops are on b1 and e1, the queen in the corner on h1, and the pawn on b2 is the only one starting without a defender.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.