Promote to a Bishop, I do not think so. Promote to a Knight because it is check or promote to a castle to avoid immediate or future stalemates. When you are blatantly winning an endgame some juniors routinely promote to a Rook. Adults could too, for the practice.
Is there any use for promoting to a rook or bishop instead of a queen?
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Feb 10, 2021
0
#43
When I am helping beginners OTB I suggest that if they already have a queen that they look at promoting to a rook. This is simply that it is hard to see all the possible stalemates with two queens chasing a king especially if there are other pieces around. rooks are easier to visualise the lines.
In one of the K-8 state championships I was the chief of, in the final round and the final game (on board one to determine the state champion), a player pushed a pawn to the 8th rank in mutual time trouble and then both players and the floor chief saw that queening the pawn was stalemate (the salient points were multiple blocked pawns for both players, Black king on a6, White king on a4, White rook on b1 and pawn promoting on b8). Both players and the floor chief were about to start analyzing while the pawn was still on the board and the clock was running, so I calmly asked whether or not the game was over (a common request for a late-running game so the back room work could be started) and after both players said yes I asked what the result was. When both players said it was a draw I responded by saying that the result was the draw both players agreed on even though the promoting player had not finished the move and was about to flag and underpromoting to a rook was mate in two.
PS the state champion ended up being the board two winner with better tie-breaks at 6.5-0.5.
Yes, an upsidedown Rook is still a Rook not a Queen arbiters have decided. A spare Queen is provided at tournaments and matches.
DerekDHarvey wrote:
Yes, an upsidedown Rook is still a Rook not a Queen arbiters have decided. A spare Queen is provided at tournaments and matches.
That was critical in a Canadian Championship blitz play-off for the title. The players had earlier traded queens and both were going to promote in succession. When White went to promote his queen was still in Black's hand, there was no extra queen, and he promoted to an upside down rook. Black instantly promoted his pawn to a queen while releasing the White queen in his hand and the arbiter turned the White rook right-side up while pointing to the visible White queen (he hadn't noticed that the queen was hidden a second before). Black won the K+Q+pawns vs K+R+more pawns ending. The play-off was recorded and there was outcry over both Black's holding on to the queen (and other captured pieces as well) as well as the arbiter's failure to provide spare queens for the play-off.
Sometimes juniors yell out when someone is struggling to win with two Queens or Q+R 'Pretend it is a Rook'.
jonnin wrote:
Yes. some positions will be stalemate if you choose a queen but allow the opponent's king to move if you pick a rook or other. Also a knight can be dropped into an existing fork, which may be more to your advantage than a queen, though that is going to be exceedingly rare. Some people under promote to force their opponent into a tough decision as well: its obvious you need to capture the queen that just promoted and then lose the piece that captured, but what if they made a rook, is it still worth the trade? or a bishop, what then?
All these situations come up. Most of the time, its going to be a queen, though.
this is a good argument on the topic of promoting into another piece other than the queen
Here is an example of when promoting to a rook or queen is actually a blunder. This is from Eric Rosen's video, actually, about a rare endgame idea. I almost got to play it once, but then my opponent blundered checkmate before I could so....
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.But yeah, this is a good example. It's still pretty rare though when promoting to a queen or a rook results in a stalemate
I know that the black king could just take the bishop lol, but well... to change that now is too much work. As long as everyone gets the point, I think we're happy. lol
Oh my bad, didn't read the whole thing
Feb 10, 2021
0
#53
blueemu wrote:
It's a very old composition. Hundreds of years old.
That’s the Saavedra Position. It’s not that old it was first published in 1895.
oh no what have i started
and yes, i see the point in doing it to avoid stalemate now
I would recommend promoting to a rook because it can move almost anywhere by using horizontal and vertical lines.
Paolo9109 wrote:
I would recommend promoting to a rook because it can move almost anywhere by using horizontal and vertical lines.
The queen can also do that. Hence the question.
A famous underpromotion:
It depends on the position. Promoting to queen is usually the most obvious and useful promotion, but promoting to knight may give to upper hand in a troublesome position. If you're playing for points on captured pieces, promoting to queen might not be the best choice if an immediate recapture is guaranteed.
The Albin Counter Gambit is powerful and leads to short games.
That is true.
But it was just a simple example where promoting to a queen right away would result in a stalemate. Of course, one could make some position where if you make any king move, opponent doesn't have any squares and it is a stalemate.