Promotion (chess)

From Chesspedia, the Free Chess Encyclopedia.

Promotion is a chess term describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches the eighth square into the player's choice of a queen, knight, bishop, or rook. Promotions to king are also possible in some chess variants, such as suicide chess.

The term queening is often used to describe a promotion to a queen. Since the queen is the most powerful piece, over 99% of promotions in practical play are to queen. A promotion to knight is occasionally useful, particularly if it occurs with check. A promotion to a bishop or rook usually makes no sense since the queen is more powerful, combining the capabilities of both of those pieces. However, on rare occasions such an underpromotion is necessary to avoid stalemate. Underpromotions to rook or bishop usually occur in the context of chess problems rather than practical play.

The promotion is not limited to pieces that have been captured. Some finer chess sets (see Chess piece) have an extra queen of each color, should it be needed. If there is a promotion to a queen, and no queen is available, an upside-down rook is often used to designate a queen.

Strategy

The ability to promote is often the critical factor in endgames and thus is an important consideration in opening and middlegame strategy. A "passed pawn" is one which has no enemy pawns directly in front of it or to either side. Such a pawn is very valuable and should be pushed forward at every possible opportunity. On the other hand, the player defending against the passed pawn does well to place a piece (particularly a knight) directly in front of it to prevent it from moving. Chess grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch wrote in his classic book My System that a passed pawn has a "lust to expand" and must be blockaded ("kept under lock and key") by the opposing player.

See also

• King and pawn versus king promoting the pawn in a K&P versus K ending, if possible.