Is it possible to simply refulse to promote your pawn?  I know it's silly, but is it legal?

No. You must promote a pawn - Article 3.7 e) - FIDE laws of chess.

Excellent!  Thank you.

 

For anyone interested, here's the rule. I found it.

 

"When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. The player’s choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously. This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called ‘promotion’ and the effect of the new piece is immediate."

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Believe it or not, most people here are aware of the basic rules of chess.

For example, everybody knows that en passant is cheating, and that a pinned piece cannot give check. We also know that stalemating is unfair and that if you run out of time while winning you should still win.

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The key word is most, because even if a very few learned that law from this thread it helped them.  I am sympathetic on the behalf of beginners, because many times there is little concern for them in these threads. I well remember teaching myself chess with no help whatsoever from anyone, and I would have cherished having such help given to me back then.

Come on, lighten up, if you know something written in these threats just remember not everyone on this site knows all there is to know about chess.  

I find the threads "insufficient material" most funniest.

And it's really interesting that most of the OPs persist in their claims, even when you show the "insufficient material" to be sufficient by drawing the mate for them.

They just claim to have a moral right for a certain outcome of the game.

And all of it could be easily handled by an hour spent in reading the FIDE laws of chess.

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You know it's funny because I drew a game because of insufficient material a while ago and I believed that I had should have won the game. He had about seven pieces and I had a piece, I can't remember whether it was a knight or bishop but I doubt it matters when he has that amount of pawns.

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chess.com was following the FIDE laws of chess(as much as a software can follow it - it cant recognize certain dead draw positions).

There was a discussion and initiative to change this to a say more convenient definition, which declares some endgames as draws(regardless of possible helpmate scenario). I'm not sure if it has been implemented yet.

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Moral of the story: Ask questions, b/c nothing is more exciting than watching an elitist prick get all pissy over it.

 

U mad?

Damn those elitist pricks that know the rules