Promoting to....A PAWN ? Can it Help ?

Not a problem. Highly instructive...TY eric  .  

The only possible case where a pawn staying a pawn would help, that I can think of, would be in a case where you want to encourage a stalemate because the 8th-rank pawn can't move.  If moving the pawn to the 8th rank exposes the opponent's king to a check, requiring the opponent to protect his King and then you have no legal move, it would a be stalemate, which may be desirable when the opponent has much more material.  If this example below has a flaw (I just cooked it up), then something similar would work. The first move is the White Pawn to f8, promoting it to a Pawn - I can't show it in the diagram because it wants me to promote it to a piece!

Excellent example Mickin (...tho' BxR+ gets outta it).

Fully understand your point !....TY  . 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)

I think promoting to a pawn is against the rules (only queen, rook, knight or bishop are legal promotions) so the question is purely hypothetical......

No worries.

@MickinMD

This is quite a valid point, the idea is somewhere there.

The most telling argument about pawn promotion is "IT ISN'T ONE AT ALL !"....see ?

So. Why do we hafta abide by the pormo rule when leaving it as a pawn isn't a promo at all ?....bizarro !!

If I wanna leave it a pawn & forgo promotion then why can't I ?...this forced promotion at the 8th rank is total baldersquat....and for that ?....the book needsta get spat upon....or at least seahurled.

...as u can plainly see, I'm getting sick-n-tired a this draconian text.

3.7 (e):

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.

I'm gonna get ahold a someone & tryta get must changed to can.

Does anyone see this as a problem ?....if so ?....then let's hear it.

The option of retaining your pawn a pawn rather than promoting to one of four pieces upon reaching the eighth rank would certainly be a weighty consideration in many endgames and perhaps even moreso in middle games, specifically with potential for driving stalemate in lieu of getting checkmated, thus changing the dynamics and strategy of the game under this modified rule.

The rules are what they are, and any change to them can and probably does change the game, some moreso (such as the particular restrictions on castling) than others.

Remember when GK was playing AK and one a them didn't call out queen & a big toodoo broke out ?....if u don't call out your piece wanted right then ?....then it forever remains a pawn....howz that ? 

It's like a law that when your boss gives you extra work, he has to promote you if you get it done. You (most likely) would love that law! Of course, your boss would not like that law. It's a given.

So every time you get overtime, you get promoted after! That'd be great, right?

white to move g8=P

@VincentRoberts

A B, R, Q, or N would also have worked, so that example does not justify an advantageous deployment of non-pronotion

Also, the King is already in check on F8

>'D

Regarding realistic stalemates, I had this painful moment in one of the bullet games today...

Had 10 seconds on the clock too. Not sure why I was rushing the moves. I guess it is just an instinct: "He only has a king and a pawn left, his only chance is to flag me, so I must never allow that to happen! Ever! I... Goddamn, stalemate. "

That said... Stalemates being an important factor of the position and not resulting just from a blunder are rare indeed. I personally have had those too, mostly in endgames in which the defending side manages to build a fortress (typically in queen + pawns vs rook + pawns or rook + pawns vs rook + pawns endgames).

 @MayCaesar:  Would kindly you mind visiting my topic at https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-it-possible-to-arrive-at-a-stalemate-with-perfect-play-by-both-sides and upon giving it a read weighing-in on the topic?  Humble thankz! :`]

Several years ago in a 25|0 over the board tournament I faced a situation where a stalemate was looming. A simplified diagram with the relevant pieces are as shown.

There were many more pawns though on the kingside and queensde and I did not do any recording back then so I now have no idea how the actual position looked like, the only thing that I am aware of is that all the white pawns were unable to move (all the bishops, knights and rooks have entered the playing table and we both had only one queen each). But the basic idea is shown as above. A queen capture along c1/d1//e1/f1/g1/h1 would result in stalemate. Of course I was aware of this, but I found it so hard to avoid a stalemate since every time his queen would attack me from rank one in the hopes of me capturing it. For some unknown reason my opponent make the best out of it though, and eventually I somehow managed to bring my king forward without getting perpetually checked, won the c3 pawn (believe it or not, I made it somehow) and eventually won the game. Stalemate being a draw gives a losing player a fighting chance and a hope to at least obtain the same score as the opponent, but it embarasses the winning player by not being able to utilise his powerful pieces to checkmate the opponent king, even if the stalemate was forced by the losing player and nothing could be done by the winning player to avoid it.

@The_Ghostess_Lola

Sorry I went out of topic for the second time.

From: blackrabbitto

An unusual situation occurred in a 1993 game between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Karpov was in serious time trouble, with one minute to make 16 moves. In this position, Kasparov captured the rook on d1 with the pawn on c2, and said "Queen!", indicating that the promoted piece was a queen. However, no queen was immediately available. It took some time for the arbiter to come up with a black queen. Kasparov said that if he had been attentive, he would have promoted to a rook, which was available. Kasparov's clock was running while the arbiter was getting a queen, so he started Karpov's clock. Karpov immediately played 25.Qxe4 and Kasparov told him that he was in check. Karpov replied "From what? It might be a bishop on d1." The clocks were stopped. The arbiter found a black queen, the game was backed up to the position after 24...cxd1=Q+, and Karpov was given an extra two minutes on his clock because of Kasparov's illegal move. Kasparov disputes that he made an illegal move. Kasparov soon won the game, however.

****

I just I knew which game this was. Really interesting....