Starting position #736
Back-rank setup: BBRKNNQR
SP-736 · ThroneGuard — A centre-file king with no knight on the edge; a position and its mirror twin always share this family.
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 h1, the queen on g1.
Castling long simply swaps the two pieces: the king on d1 and the rook on c1 trade places.
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 e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 415.
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 21 Morozov Balance Index: 21 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +36 centipawns for White (depth 49, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 749 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- Balance band M — moderate edge · dynamics along the play-out: stable
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +35 → +26 → +8 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #415
- The king starts on d, the rooks on c and h
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 1451 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to c1 — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e6 (c5·6) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to f7 (d5·3) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: king to e1 (d1) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: king to h2 (h1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: bishop to f5 (b1·8) — Chess960 specifics · 1110
- Mate in 2: rook to c3 (f3) — Chess960 specifics · 1410
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to h8 (h6·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Mate in 3: queen to f6 (g5·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Winning blow: bishop to a4 (c2·7) — Chess960 specifics · 2060
This position appears in course day 97
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Commentary
Long castling swaps the king on d1 with the rook on c1. A bishop is shut into the corner on a1 with a single diagonal to h8; the second works the light squares from b1. Among the pawns, e2 leans on the king alone; no other second-rank pawn starts short of a defender. The queen is on g1, the knights side by side on e1 and f1. The search ran to depth 49 here, and a rook recaptures on the fifth half-move: d4 d5 c4 dxc4 Rxc4 f6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.