INTRO
Welcome to Ascot's World! Today we'll be discussing on underpromotion. What's that? You'll find out more.
DEFENITION
Usually, we promote into a queen. But not in all times. Underpromotion is when you choose to promote into a relatively low-valued rook, bishop, or knight instead of the most powerful queen.
USAGE OF UNDERPROMOTION
When would you want to underpromote? Here are several ideas about when you would consider underpromoting.
1. AVOID STALEMATES
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
- Check
- Checkmate
- Fork
3. PROTECT PIECES & SQUARES
4. PREVENT FORKS & MATES
5. PLAY COMBINATIONS
6. TORTURE YOUR FRIENDS! (JK JK)
1. AVOID STALEMATES
The correct move is to underpromote into a rook. The opponent's king is zugzwanged to go to the mating square, Kh6, followed by Rh8#. If white promotes into a queen, it would be a stalemate when it was a complete win for white.
1. AVOID STALEMATES
Here is another example when you avoid stalemates with underpromotion. Take a look at the Saavedra Position:
White pushes the pawn forward. Black has nothing to do but check. If white's king leaves the b file and attacks the rook on the c file, black can play Rd1, preparing to skewer and win the promoted pawn. If white goes back to the b file, black will just capture the pawn and draws. Therefore, white stays on the b file until the last check. Black ran out of checks and played Rd4, preparing to fork the king and queen because Qxd4 is stalemate. But white avoided stalemate by c8=R!! White is threatening Ra8+ & Rxa4#. Black has no choice but play Ra4. Kb3 was followed, and black has to either loose its rook or be mated.
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
The answer is to underpromote to a knight. The knight forks the king and queen, and white's h pawn can queen very soon. If you chose to promote to a queen, black keep on checking us with the queen, stopping the h pawn from promoting and leading to a draw when white was supposed to bring home the victory.
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
Rd7+ is the move. White lures (I can't differenciate if it's a decoy or a deflection - please put a note if I'm wrong. ) the enemy's king to the forking square d7. If black accpets the sacrifice, it would lead to f8=N+ fork. If black doesn't, for example, Kf6, white promotes into a queen, checking as well as discovering an attack towards the black queen. This zugzwang allows white to win the endgame by queening the a pawn later.
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
As you can see, the black king is surrounded by its own pawns. Our white king guards the escaping squares of the king, as well as the promoting pawn. Queening the pawn would be a miss. Black has two queens while we only have one! Black would manage the win. The only good move here is to underpromote into a knight with check, in fact, checkmate.
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
In this position,
black pinned the white queen to the white king.
hxg8=Q is a blunder because it leads to
Mate in 1. White can trade queens with
Qxb1, but black will just
recapture with Rxb1+. This way
black would be winning because white is forced to move its king instead of capturing the bishop. The best move is to play the
zwichenzug (in passing move),
hxg8=N+. Black would play Nxg8, and now white can
trade the queens.
White would win with the extra pawns!
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
In fact this is a
real game of Ascots_World (Me) VS Martin the bot. I know there are many mates in this position, but try to beat Martin with
underpromotion! So,
underpromotion is actually not too rare!
2. PLAY CERTAIN MOVES WITH THE KNIGHT DUE TO ITS UNIQUE MOVING PATTERN
3. PROTECT PIECES & SQUARES
This is a typical example of white protecting the rook as well as checkmating with underpromotion! Check out this game through the link.
4. PREVENT FORKS & MATES
The black knight is threatening to
capture the g pawn as well as
forking the king and the promoted pawn with Ne7+. The only good move here is to
underpromote into a knight! This
prevents the knight from forking, and black
cannot capture it either. Now white is
winning with the
two extra passed pawns.
4. PREVENT FORKS & MATES
The only good move here is b1=N+. This delivers a check to the white's king, and white is not allowed to play Rg1#. The game ended in a draw at last. Underpromotion saved the game for black!
4. PREVENT FORKS & MATES
This puzzle is the hardest among all today. The rating of this puzzle is 2500+ elo. If you got this right, congratulations!
Even though black has a knight and a bishop that is sufficient for checkmate, white can force a draw. The only great move is c7, threatening to capture the knight as well as promoting. Black has four options. Ne6 is an immediate draw because it blocks the bishop protection towards c8, and Nd5+ reveals an attack on the queen, followed up with Kc4, Bxc8, Kxd4, and Kxg6. The knight sacrifice on Nf7 & Nc6 does nothing but a simple draw. Finally, black plays Nb7. Here. BLACK UNDERPROMOTES INTO A KNIGHT!! Black plays Bxc8, which withe responds with Kb6. No matter what black plays, it would lead to a draw because white can fork the bishop and knight with Kc7. Back to Nb7, if white promotes into a queen, black can perform ROYAL FORK with Nd6+, avoiding the draw. Because white underpromoted, white managed the draw!
5. PLAY COMBINATIONS
This is a puzzle made by GM Gesper on the article 9 Amazing Underpromotions. If white just
promoted into a queen, black can just perform
mate in 1. White
sacrificed the queen for an underpromotion fork, and
white is eventually winning for a full knight. White will easily queen and
win.
6. TORTURE YOUR FRIENDS!
Promote to the piece white is missing!
CONCLUSION
Thank you very much for reading this blog! I took
two weeks to finish this. Please kindly follow
Ascots_World. I hope you
enjoyed and
learnt more about underpromotion -- At least I did!
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OPENINGS
USEFUL TRICK
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