Starting position #760
Back-rank setup: RBKNBNRQ
SP-760 · BastionGuard — Both knights begin inside the board while the king stands on c or f; a position and its mirror twin 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 c1, the rooks on a1 and g1, the queen on h1.
The king already stands on c1, so castling long moves only the rook, from a1 to d1.
The bishops stand on b1 and e1; their long diagonals reach h7 and a5 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: e2.
The setup belongs to the BastionGuard family; read right to left it becomes position 397.
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 2 Morozov Balance Index: 2 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +61 centipawns for White (depth 46, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 940 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- In 50 self-play games White scored 56.0% (95% CI 42.3–68.8%).
- Balance band L — large edge · dynamics along the play-out: volatile
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +80 → +94 → +150 → +267
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #397
- The king starts on c, the rooks on a and g
- It becomes the daily position in 312 days
Puzzles from this position
- Winning blow: knight to c5 (d3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: rook to d1 (g1) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: queen to f5 (d3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1010
- Winning blow: knight to b6 (c4·4) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Winning blow: bishop to c4 (b5) — Chess960 specifics · 1110
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to f8 (a3·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Castling-960 to the rescue on g1 (c1) — Castling-960 · 1340
- Mate in 3: queen to e6 (e5·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Mate in 3: rook to e7 (b7·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1760
- Chess960 tactic on c5 (c4) — Chess960 specifics · 2400
This position appears in course day 171
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Commentary
White's edge here is unusually wide: +61 centipawns at depth 46. The king already stands on c1, so long castling moves the rook alone from a1. The bishops are on b1 and e1, the knights on d1 and f1. Among the pawns, e2 is the one that begins without a defender. The queen begins in the far corner on h1, and the line runs d4 g5 e3 e6 c4 c6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.