Starting position #643
Back-rank setup: BRNKRQNB
SP-643 · ThroneGuard — A central king (d or e) and two knights tucked onto inner files: the family that holds the standard array, SP-518.
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 b1 and e1, the queen on f1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
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: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 211.
The engine's main line opens with g4.
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 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 104 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 (70 half-moves): +34 → +22 → 0 → 0
- Deeper check (1 200 000 000 nodes, depth 49): +17 cp, +3 cp against the base run — verified
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #211
- The king starts on d, the rooks on b and e
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 1427 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to e4 (d3·20) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e6 (f4·3) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to f3 (h1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to b7 (a8) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: rook to b2 (b1) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: queen to h8 (h7·9) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Winning blow: queen to d6 (d3·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1290
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to c7 (e5·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1450
- Mate in 2: knight to a6 (c5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Chess960 tactic on b2 (c4) — Chess960 specifics · 2120
This position appears in course day 28
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Commentary
The engine sends the queen out early here, and she takes a pawn: after g4 g6 comes Qh3, and once Black plays Nd6 the queen collects on h7 — Qxh7 Nf6. The king begins on d1 and castling is ordinary in both directions, with the rooks on b1 and e1. Both corners hold a bishop, a1 towards h8 and h1 towards a8, each with a single diagonal. The pawn on h2 has no defender, and c2 and d2 both lean on the king alone. The knights are on c1 and g1.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.