Starting position #468
Back-rank setup: RBBNNKRQ
SP-468 · BastionGuard — King off-centre on c or f 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 f1, the rooks on a1 and g1, the queen on h1.
Castling short simply swaps the two pieces: the king on f1 and the rook on g1 trade places.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The pawn on e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 686.
The engine's main line opens with d4, putting a pawn straight into the centre.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 83 Morozov Balance Index: 83 of 100 — class A — most balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +16 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 161 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band S — slight edge · dynamics along the play-out: volatile
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +35 → 0 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #686
- The king starts on f, the rooks on a and g
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 33 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e6 (c5) — Chess960 specifics · 620
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to f6 (e5·5) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d4 (c3·38) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: rook to h8 (e8) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: king to h2 (g1·6) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: king to f1 (g1·24) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Winning blow: queen to g5 (g2) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Castling-960 to the rescue on g8 (f8·5) — Castling-960 · 1470
- Mate in 3: queen to a2 — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Chess960 tactic on f5 (d6) — Chess960 specifics · 2120
This position appears in course day 7
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Commentary
Short castling swaps the king on f1 with the rook on g1. The bishops stand side by side on b1 and c1, one on each colour. The pawn on e2 leans on the king alone; no other second-rank pawn starts short of a defender. The queen begins in the far corner on h1, the knights on d1 and e1, the second rook in the corner on a1. The engine takes the centre with d4 and the line runs d4 d5 c3 h5 h4 c6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.