Chess960 position 51

The back rank is B N N R Q K R B. The king starts on f1, the rooks on d1 and g1, the bishops on a1 and h1, the queen on e1.

White has 21 legal first moves, more 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 f1 to g1 and the rook goes from g1 to f1.

Castling long, the king goes from f1 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 c2, 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.

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