Starting position #832
Back-rank setup: BBRKNRQN
SP-832 · ThroneScout — A knight starts on the edge (a/h) and the king sits centrally on d or e; the mirror twin stays in this family too.
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 f1, 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 d2, e2 is defended by the king alone — the same soft spot f2 is in the classical setup.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 127.
The engine's main line opens with c4.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 65 Morozov Balance Index: 65 of 100 — class B — balanced.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +22 centipawns for White (depth 47, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 325 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 (60 half-moves): +27 → +24 → 0
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #127
- The king starts on d, the rooks on c and f
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 643 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to c4 (b3·5) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: rook to f8 (f1·5) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to f5 (b1·10) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: queen to c4 (f7·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1060
- Castling-960 to the rescue on c1 (d1) — Castling-960 · 1150
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to b8 (a7·18) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to e5 (d3·20) — Chess960 specifics · 1290
- Attack on the uncastled king: knight to c2 (e1·7) — Chess960 specifics · 1480
- Winning blow: rook to e8 (g8·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1790
- Winning blow: rook to f7 (f1·21) — Chess960 specifics · 1870
This position appears in course day 50
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Commentary
Long castling swaps the king on d1 with the rook on c1, while the rook already occupies f1, so the short one moves the king alone. A bishop holds the corner on a1 with one diagonal to h8; the second bishop is on b1. The pawns on d2 and e2 lean on the king alone; the other six start with a defender. The queen is on g1, the knights on e1 and h1 — the cornered one has g3 as its only move. White's edge is a narrow +22 centipawns: c4 c5 Ng3 b6 b3 f6.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.