Chess960 position 306

The back rank is B N Q R K B R N. The king starts on e1, the rooks on d1 and g1, the bishops on a1 and f1, the queen on c1.

White has 19 legal first moves, fewer than the twenty of the standard array, because the knights reach a different number of squares from where they stand.

Castling short, the king goes from e1 to g1 and the rook goes from g1 to f1.

Castling long, the king goes from e1 to c1 and the rook stays on d1.

One thing about castling here surprises people: the queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king.

The pawn on a2, h2 starts with no defender at all.

The bishop on a1 sits on the long diagonal behind the b2 pawn. Move that pawn and the bishop looks the length of the board at g7.

Every rule of chess applies here unchanged apart from castling, which the rules page explains in full. To play this exact arrangement against the computer, open position 306 on Play CPU. To train tactics on positions like it, use the Chess960 puzzle trainer.