FIDE changed the rules!

This puzzle is one of the reasons FIDE changed the chess rule about promoting. NOW the rule says pawns must promote to a piece of the SAME color!

explain?

Ahh I see, of that's very clever. I didn't even know you could promote to an opposite-coloured piece though? Now, from this though, I can see why. 

It also seems unlikely that there would have been a rule about NOT promoting to the opposite colour. :)

"But nothing says I can't!"

The rules says i can't move a knight the same way i would a rook, that doesn't mean to say i can.

Guys, he is correct. The old rules allowed for a piece to be promoted to any color, or to not be promoted at all. Scources: http://hebdenbridgechessclub.blogspot.com/2011/02/hardest-chess-problem-in-world.html

also: wikipedia

FIDE Laws of Chess 3.7e

"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."

That basically means you cannot promote a pawn to a piece of the opposite color. If it was legal before, it isn't now.

You used to be able to not promote and have a dummy pawn which can't move.

Regarding post #1:

Would that be legal in bughouse?

for example

 if you do opposite color promotion it is IRREGULAR move and in blitz/rapid you loose game instantly if your opponent claims it, problem is if your opponent does not claim and he plays and press clock, than game continues normally.

unless you are magnus carlsen...

regardless the regulations, also for normal chess games, think the rule is that other side must claim  when something irregular occurs.

have seen  grandmaster played Ke1-f1-e1 and later 0-0.... and it was live broadcast, and broadcast of that game did not continue since program blocked after 0-0, and operator and organizers knew why and what, still game was going on because nobody aside is allowed to claim or interfeere with game, only players.

I don't think it was explicitly allowed, more likely not prohibited, because nobody expected that, same goes for vertical castling.

The Wikipedia article also says that a proper reading of the old rule would allow promotion to an opposition piece.

According to the FIDE Laws of Chess: “The knight may move to one of the squares nearest to that on which it stands but not on the same rank, file or diagonal.”

That's not logic on a deterministic level. Chess is a constructive axiomatic system. You can only do the things the system says you can do. All the other things you cannot do. Like also you can only use the objects defined by the system. No other objects exist. You cannot promote a pawn to a giraffe only because the rules do not forbid it. And invent your own giraffe geometry because the rules don't forbid it. You will have to produce evidence that the rules allow it. 

Of course, it is possible that some allowances are ambiguously defined. And, as the show must go on, tournament logic demands that an arbiter steps in and decides. Throw up a coin I'd suggest. Well, that was 150 years ago!

Another change (at least to US rules) was that castling originally required (in addition to the other conditions) that the king had never been moved and the rook that was being castled with had never been moved.  Then somebody promoted an e pawn to a rook and castled with the rook that had never been moved.  Now is says that the rook has to be on the same rank as the king.