Starting position #868
Back-rank setup: QBBRKRNN
SP-868 · 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 e1, the rooks on d1 and f1, the queen on a1.
The kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king, from e1 to g1.
The bishops stand on b1 and c1; their long diagonals reach h7 and h6 once the c- and d-pawns step aside.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: g2, h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 94.
The engine's main line opens with Ng3, bringing the knight out to g3.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 0 Morozov Balance Index: 0 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +75 centipawns for White (depth 43, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 957 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- In 50 self-play games White scored 59.0% (95% CI 45.2–71.5%).
- Balance band L — large edge · dynamics along the play-out: volatile
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +68 → +97 → +64 → +45
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #94
- The king starts on e, the rooks on d and f
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- This position does not come up as the daily position in the next four years
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to e5 (a1) — Chess960 specifics · 620
- Winning blow: rook to d1 (f1·2) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d5 (e4·105) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: queen to a6 (a5) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: queen to c6 (c3·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1200
- Mate in 2: queen to g7 (h7) — Chess960 specifics · 1320
- Attack on the uncastled king: bishop to d2 (c1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1390
- Mate in 3: bishop to d3 (h7) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Attack on the uncastled king: rook to g3 (g1·3) — Chess960 specifics · 1750
- Chess960 tactic on f6 (d4·3) — Chess960 specifics · 2350
This position appears in course day 3
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Commentary
Both rooks already stand on the squares castling would give them, d1 and f1, so neither castling moves a rook — only the king travels. The bishops stand side by side on b1 and c1, one on each colour. Two pawns begin without a defender, g2 and h2. The queen begins in the far corner on a1, the knights on g1 and h1 — the cornered one has g3 as its only move. The engine's number here is +75 centipawns, and White's first three moves are all made by that same knight, the last of them a capture with check: Ng3 Ng6 Nf5 f6 Nxg7+ Kf7.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.