Promotion to Rook vs Queen

I can't come up with a scenario when this is ever needed. Sometimes when the endgame is clear I promote to Took simply to get better. Anyone think this is a slap in the face to an opponent to promote less than a queen?

Underpromoting to a knight is way more common than to a rook or a bishop, and it's fairly easy to see examples of underpromoting to a knight.

For an example of underpromotion to a rook being the only way to win (promoting to a queen is a draw), see Saavedra's position.

@chessmicky: You can play 1.- Kb1 and if the white King closes in, play 2.-Ka1 and if 3.Rb2 (what else?) it is stalemate. So you don't even need underpromotion here.

I think underpromoting to rook or bishop is stupid because the Queen has both their powers. 

stalemate is better than losing.. :P

Here are some underpromotions to rook or bishop: http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/chess2/minor.htm

I believe in some of them underpromotion was the only winning move.

As someone already showed the end of a fun study, I will show it. It was published before computers, and the original was black to move and draw:

However, a few years after it was published, someone on a school noticed a problem, and improved the study:

More crazy is this position:

An extreme case of underpromotion is the babson task. Studies, where if black underpromotes, white MUST underpromote to the same piece and win.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babson_task

See my game against a computer that I posted here...

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/what-i-get-for-premoving

I was forced to either underpromote or to delay a tempo, so such situations really do occur where underpromotion is needed.

Even though most of the time it wasn't necessary, when I was a younger player, I would routinely underpromote to a rook when not necessary in KvP endgames to avoid the embarassing stalemates that can happen when you don't consider the queen's diagonal movements.

Now-a-days though, I promote to a queen unless underpromotion is required to win/draw(depending on my current goal).  

I understand underpromotion to avoid stalemate, i had just never seen a necessary rook.

I think if you add that restriction, and thus ignore all positions where the underpromotion avoids stalemates, then there's no way to "need" a rook in such a manner that a queen somehow couldn't fulfil that need.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/one-of-the-most-famous-chess-puzzles

See post #30, try solving it.

All three possible underpromotions are needed in order to win.