Chess960 position 56

The back rank is N B N R B Q K R. The king starts on g1, the rooks on d1 and h1, the bishops on b1 and e1, the queen on f1.

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 stays on g1 and the rook goes from h1 to f1.

Castling long, the king goes from g1 to c1 and the rook stays on d1.

Two things about castling here surprise people: castling short leaves the king where it already stands on g1; only the rook moves; the queenside rook already stands on d1, so castling long moves only the king.

The pawn on b2 starts with no defender at all.

A rook sits in the corner on h1, so bringing it into the game is usually a reason to castle early.

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