Bishops of the Same Color

Underpromotion is somewhat uncommon but far from unknown.  Sometimes players underpromote with a Bishop or Rook to avoid stalemate, sometimes, as with a Knight, simply to checkmate and sometimes just to further torment a beleaguered opponent.

I have been trying, in vain, to find a practical situation where anyone would underpromote, or any known game or composed problem where someone did underpromote a pawn to a second Bishop of the same color.

Is anyone aware of such an occurance?

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What a ridiculous way to get one's posting listed.

Never heard of such a thing but would be very interested to see the game if one can be found.

I HAVE seen it. Once; I can't recall the position, the parameters. It was something like the enemy king was caught in this nasty, long diagonal 'gauntlet', and it was like a man standing in the middle of a big hollow tube. He had a bishop on the color that controlled the diagonal, so he could block one check along it, but it was committal; that one enemy bishop just couldn't block two checks. So one guy aims from end A of the tube, check, the bishop is forced to block, then the other guy, another bishop on the same color, you promote to create him, he then checks, and its mate. But promoting to a Queen would have accomplished the same thing in 99.9999% of all possible positions. I swear, I've seen it once but its rather foggy. So, to illustrate how hard it is, I just composed this little puzzle; again, the one main issue seems to be that every time you could promote to another Bishop of the same color, you could just as easily promote to a Queen with the same, or in most cases, more of an 'overkill' result.

"A position where the side promoting to a Queen loses (not draws) and would instead "WIN" with a bishop in the queen's place seems terribly tricky...especially if a bishop was still in play on that color. It would probably involve a zugzwang of some kind.

Anyway this is simple, I just 'made it up' so forgive me. Play goes:

       1. Bg3+, Be5 2. b7-b8=B#.

And 2. b7-b8=Q#. The same, or better, or over kill.  

I think if you're trying for what's called a pure mate, maybe getting another Bishop would satisfy that kind of guideline.

So. Almost interesting topic.Tough question. I'll keep thinking about it.

hmm... nice example. Of course, since a Bishop itself isn't essential, as a Queen works too, it's only a partial answer, but a clever one nonetheless.  Thanks.

WAIT I got it. i think. what must have happened is that earlier in the game, like, instead of having to underpromote to avoid a stalemate or something, lets say you had a knight in the back row, guarded by a pawn on the 7th. then this guy plays Rook x Knight, FORCING you to take back with a pawn. and if you promote to a queen its check, as it would be with a bishop, But he's more likely to move out of check from just a bishop, and more likely to kill it with something else if you promote to a Queen. So he steps, then realizes that you've still got a bishop on the board on that color. You're stuck with 2 on one color, you gotta find a way to mate him. hmm....

Some (it looks like most) of the other Babson tasks also have the same thing.

I like this one even better, since there's no opposite-colored bishop:

Not a clever one as for the underpromotion, but a special game nonetheless. 

I swear I recently saw such a game, but I've been unable to find it in the last twelve issues of TWIC. All I recall is that white played b8=B in that game and the players soon agreed to a draw. Maybe someone with access to a larger and more sophisticated database than me could find it.

I noticed about a composed problem by Smyslov about this topic many years ago, but I don't remember more... I'll try to find it.

I agree, I think there was a study by Soviet (Russain?) players where the same-colored bishop promotion was the theme, but that was too many years ago to remember know.  Maybe Troitsky, Sam Loyd?  Sorry, it's the best I can do, BG.

TBentley, thanks for those two games, problems or game and problem. The first problem is somewhere on the horizon of my comprehesion, but I can see the second problem (game?) and it seems a beautiful example.

Hotwax, that game was funny.  The underpromotions weren't forced, but they were comical.

Well, Plupofiera and Dashkee, if the two above were problems that employed perfect underpromotion to a same-colored Bishop, then I guess the action can be both forced or most practical and other problems might surely exist.

Nakamura once promoted 5 bishops against a computer in a (if I remember well), 3 minutes game.

I don´t remember exactly his words, but a tittled player, member of the staff (allways if I remember well, brain sometimes don´t works very well), said something like: "computers sometimes forget to resign".

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