Promotion

As all of us know when we promote a pawn we have the following options: queen, rook, bishop or knight for promotion.

What's the sense in promoting my pawn to rook or bishop since I can promote it to queen. Notice I didn´t mention knight since the way knight moves might be an option i wouldn't have with a queen.

But the hability of rook or bishop I have with a queen and more. So I don't see any reason, except showing your opponent you could beat him/her without using all your weapons. But I don't be believe that would be the case.

Reginaldo Rigo

PS: Sorry if my English offended the grammar too much. My mother language is Portuguese

There are many cases where you have to promote to Rook, and a few wher you have to promote to Bishop, normally to deny your opponent a stalemate defense.

One example is the Saavedra study, which has been posted in these forums many times.

Thanks. Yes. You're right. That makes all sense.

Here's a simple example of underpromotion:

Thanks. That's a clear example.

Here's a not-so-simple, but really cool example of underpromotion that a member by the name of Streptomicin tortured me with:

Here is a game where I promoted to a rook delivering checkmate. I could have done the same with a queen, but i figured if i could underpromote and still get mate, why not?

That's the underpromotion I mentioned before that looks like some kind of inelegant to me. In fact that's the reason of my question. How and why underpromote without being inelegant? But that's a subjective way of thinking so there's a lot of people who don't think this way.

Anyway great game.

Reginaldo

That's a simple one in the sense that it was promoted to a knight and there was no doubt about it. 

 Look at the variations. You'll see why it's not simple and why it's such a good example.

IMO, marilizeit's promoting to a rook was very elegant.  A queen would have been surplus.  :)

Thanks, and I agree! Surplus is a good way to put it; In a sense I only used what I needed. As an added bonus I can easily play out the game on a real chess board (without making something into a queen).

There are lots of underpromotion examples and explanations on wikipedia here for example this interesting one from a real game where underpromotion to a bishop (the rarest necessary underpromotion) is the only way to win.

I often use underpromotion to gently prompt my opponent to resign: "Look! I didn't even take a Queen and you are still losing". This silent message usually has the desired effect.

Wow. I'm impressed, this is pretty incredible...promotions to each of the four pieces are required. Did this position actually manage to arise in a game between you two, or was this an attempt at a variation of the Babson task?

 No, it was a puzzle. I don't know what the Babson task is.

Here's a game I played. my opponent resigned because of checkmate. Promotion to a queen. rook, or bishop would win

The Babson task is definitive proof that chessplayers have WAY too much free time, and should, in fact, get a life....

It's a problem composing task, involving around underpromotion, white to play and mate in x number of moves. On Black's 1st defensive  move, he promotes a pawn. The solution requires that White's winning continuation mirror Black's promotion. So, if Black promotes to Queen  White wins by promoting to Queen, Bsihop to Bishop, Knight to Knight and Rook to Rook.

It was 1st accomplished in the '80s by a Russian soccer coach.

 Cool! Sounds very difficult!

Oh, and I don't need a life, I have a chess.com account.

Oh, lol, I just found oinquarki's position on Wikipedia, under the Allumwandlung article. Pretty sweet (though the elegance is slightly marred by the two possible mates in the 1... e4 2. f8Q any 3. Qe7/Qf6# line. But it's not totally cooked, just maybe slightly charred. :P)