Starting position #886
Back-rank setup: RQBKRBNN
SP-886 · 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 a1 and e1, the queen on b1.
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.
The bishops stand on c1 and f1; their long diagonals reach h6 and a6 once the d- and e-pawns step aside.
One second-rank pawn starts with no defender at all: h2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 70.
The engine's main line opens with c3.
Every sentence here is computed from the setup itself and can be checked on the board.
Balance
MBI 3 Morozov Balance Index: 3 of 100 — class D — largest edge.
- Engine evaluation of the starting position: +58 centipawns for White (depth 48, 400 000 000 nodes).
- Rank 930 of 960 by balance — 1 is the most balanced start.
- In 50 self-play games White scored 55.0% (95% CI 41.3–67.9%).
- Balance band L — large edge · dynamics along the play-out: stable
- Evaluation along the engine's main line (60 half-moves): +55 → +73 → +71 → +35
Position facts
- Mirror twin: position #70
- The king starts on d, the rooks on a and e
- King and rook are neighbours — castling from adjacent squares feels unusual
- It becomes the daily position in 105 days
Puzzles from this position
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to h3 (g2·5) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to d6 (e5·10) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Attack on the uncastled king: pawn to c6 (d5·20) — Chess960 specifics · 780
- Winning blow: rook to c3 (f3) — Chess960 specifics · 920
- Winning blow: rook to b1 (a1) — Chess960 specifics · 970
- Winning blow: knight to e5 (f3·9) — Chess960 specifics · 1150
- Winning blow: queen to h5 (e2·4) — Chess960 specifics · 1280
- Mate in 2: queen to d4 (d7) — Chess960 specifics · 1440
- Mate in 3: queen to e6 (d7·2) — Chess960 specifics · 1630
- Chess960 tactic on d5 (e6) — Chess960 specifics · 2400
This position appears in course day 63
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Commentary
The king begins on d1 and castling is ordinary in both directions, with the rooks on a1 and e1. The bishops are on c1 and f1, one on each colour. Among the pawns, h2 is the one that begins without a defender. The queen is tucked away on b1, the knights on g1 and h1 — the cornered one has g3 as its only move. The search ran to depth 48 and calls it +58 centipawns, though the engine opens quietly with c3: c3 Ng6 e4 c6 Ng3 Qc7.
Written from the measured facts above and checked against the board before publishing. All 960 positions have one.