Starting position #385
Back-rank setup: BQRBNNKR
SP-385 · RampartGuard — The king starts out on a wing file, b or g, with neither knight in a corner.
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 c1 and h1, the queen on b1.
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 f2 is defended by the king alone — the classic soft spot of the standard setup.
The setup belongs to the RampartGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 763.
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 89 Morozov Balance Index: 89 of 100 — class A — most balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +14 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 111 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 (64 half-moves): +27 → +16 → +13 → 0
- Deeper check (1 200 000 000 nodes, depth 50): +6 cp, -8 cp against the base run — verified · E — even
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #763
- The king starts on g, the rooks on c and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 380 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d5 (c4·27) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: rook to h8 (h1) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: rook to f3 (e3) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: king to e2 (e1·6) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Attack on the uncastled king: rook to b8 (b1·16) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e7 (f5·15) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: rook to g6 (d6) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: king to h2 (g1·28) — Chess960 specifics · 1250
- Winning blow: queen to g8 (g6·5) — Chess960 specifics · 1430
- Winning blow: queen to a1 (b1·2) — Chess960 specifics · 2060
This position appears in course day 60
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Commentary
The king begins on g1, already on the square short castling would give him, so that castling moves the rook alone. A bishop is closed into the corner on a1 with a single diagonal to h8; the second bishop is on d1. The pawn on f2 leans on the king alone; no other second-rank pawn starts short of a defender. The queen is on b1, the knights on e1 and f1. The published line opens b4 b6, then h4 c5 bxc5 bxc5 — the b-file opens for both.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.