Starting position #384
Back-rank setup: BBQRNNKR
SP-384 · RampartGuard — King on the wing (b/g) with both knights on inner files.
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 d1 and h1, the queen on c1.
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.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: e2.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 767.
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 69 Morozov Balance Index: 69 of 100 — class B — balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +21 centipawns for White (depth 44, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 306 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): +29 → +39 → +19 → +11
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #767
- The king starts on g, the rooks on d and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 165 days
Puzzles from this position
- Winning blow: pawn to e6 — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to c5 (d4·5) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: rook to c7 (c1) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: queen to f4 (c1·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Winning blow: bishop to g6 (b1·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1150
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to d5 (e3·17) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: knight to c5 (e6·9) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Mate in 2: queen to h7 (c2·6) — Chess960 specifics · 1320
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to g5 (c1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1470
- Mate in 3: pawn to g6 (h5·5) — Chess960 specifics · 1980
This position appears in course day 27
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Commentary
The king begins where short castling would put him, on g1 — so that castling moves the rook alone, and the long one moves only the king, because the rook already stands on d1. A bishop is shut into the corner on a1 with a single diagonal to h8; the second works the light squares from b1. The pawn on e2 has no defender, and f2 leans on the king alone. The queen is on c1, the knights on e1 and f1. The engine's main line opens c4 c5, then h4 h5 Nf3 b6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.