Chess960 position 343

The back rank is N R B K Q R N B. The king starts on d1, the rooks on b1 and f1, the bishops on c1 and h1, the queen on e1.

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 d1 to g1 and the rook stays on f1.

Castling long, the king goes from d1 to c1 and the rook goes from b1 to d1.

One thing about castling here surprises people: the kingside rook already stands on f1, so castling short moves only the king.

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

The bishop on h1 sits on the long diagonal behind the g2 pawn. Move that pawn and the bishop looks the length of the board at b7.

The queen stands next to the king, so moves that open lines towards the king tend to hit the queen as well.

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 343 on Play CPU. To train tactics on positions like it, use the Chess960 puzzle trainer.