Pawn Promotion

[perseus]

Anyone promoted to a piece other than a Queen for valid reasons?

I have played 72 games and only promoted one pawn and that got taken the next go!

[perseus]

Made it. I have got a pawn promotion. I decided that it would be best to have a Queen. First one I get to keep in my 81st game.

I think the opponent refrained from resigning on purpose!?

www.stansco.com/cgi-bin/nc_game.cgi?352607???

[echecmat]

Hi,

I think I had my first promotion in a stansco game I finished yesterday. It was not enough though, draw. stansco.com/cgi-bin/nc_game.cgi?339696???
Overall it was a rather strange end/middle game. I should have promoted two pawns this game I think, then I would have been able to win. I'll explain....

In move 26 the rook move seems to be bad. In the end I loose my queen with that (move33) and I seem to have lost position. Happily I could play d7 in move 34, (followed by Nc5) making things not hopeless. Therefore I decided not to give up just yet. After move 41, I'm not doing so bad I think. And look at that knight! Never seen anything like it. After move 43, I have two pawns at the 7th line. Never had that in my life either.
I had already seen that my bisshop was the right colour for d8, I could take advantage of it in move 47. This takes the Qxa8 out of the game. Unfortunately for me, my queen is at a very bad position, making a perpetual check possible for black. The knight/bisshop tandem was more dangerous than the Queen/knight! That's very uncommon I think. But could I have done better? I think the answer is yes.

I think that my mistake was in move 48. I shouldn't have played Bxf6, but d8=Q+!. Kxd8 is forced. Then this continues with 49. Bxf6, Qxf6 and 50. a8=Q+. Now promoting this second pawn, it is with a check. This enables me to put my queen to the center of the board (checking black in the meantime maybe), and then I would have had a knight advantage.
As usual, chess is never straightforward. I should have sacrificed a very expensive pawn at the seventh line for positional advantage...

Someone having any additional comments/suggestions of which I (we) can learn?

Echec-Mat

[yitwail]

EM, i think the mistake is actually move 49, when you still could have played d8=Q+, forcing Kxd8, then a8=Q+. after that, it's a matter of forcing an exchange of queens, and then the knight advantage should win.

[echecmat]

Good suggestion Yitwail. It comes down to the same. At least I could have repaired my error.

Echec-Mat

[Gritty]

perseus said:

Made it. I have got a pawn promotion. I decided that it would be best to have a Queen. First one I get to keep in my 81st game.

I think the opponent refrained from resigning on purpose!?

www.stansco.com/cgi-bin/nc_game.cgi?352607???

I had got myself in trouble long before the pawn was actually promoted. I didn't specifically allow you the promotion before resigning, but it's a nice thought.

I often find it a difficult call as to when to actually resign. On the one hand I don't want to appear to be flouncing off when behind, but some players enjoy actually closing in and mating (I know I do) while others will feel you are being disrespectful if you make them play out a game which they clear have in the bag.

[perseus]

Any pawns promoted to minor pieces yet?

[ZorMaster]

Ofcourse i made other promotions then the Queen only.

It depents of the position of both players and your own endgame strenght and knowledge.

To play creative chess lines it is more fun to promote a pawn to Knight or rook.

But i think 80 % of the promoted pawns become a Queen.

[perseus]

I do not know the %. I was thinking along the lines of 99% to Queens.

I was also thinking when it was essential to the best and speediest conclusion of the game, rather than any other reason. i.e. promotion ot the minor piece is the best possible move (according to the player) in the circumstances (no matter that hindsight says another move would have been better).

Have you played in a game where both sides promoted to minor pieces Zormaster?

I have never actually played a game where it has been essential to promote to a minor piece, OTB or on Stan's! My standard is a bit lower though, I suspect.

[perseus]

Best laid plans of promoting to a Knight came a cropper in the match:

www.stansco.com/cgi-bin/nc_game.cgi?352756?48b?black?large

White just did not move as expected (doesn't it always happen that the opponent thinks differently?)

It was conceivable that both side would promote to a Knight in this game which would be unprecedented (would it?), but as it happened, it looks like neither will. This game is unfinished, and probably will be for quite some time now!

[perseus]

I had a quick look at this. I expect I would have promoted the Rook's pawn. It looks like that around move 51, you made a wrong King move as there may have been a place for it where it could not be checked (did not go through it in detail though).

It is bad enough trying to get a win with a Rook rampaging around the Board. A Queen is even worse!

yitwail said:

EM, i think the mistake is actually move 49, when you still could have played d8=Q+, forcing Kxd8, then a8=Q+. after that, it's a matter of forcing an exchange of queens, and then the knight advantage should win.

[yitwail]

Perseus, you may be right. the white king should have headed toward the knight. however, if he sacrificed the d pawn by promoting it first, then promoting the a pawn with check, the black king moves to the 7th rank, the queen checks on the 7th, then king must return to 8th, or else Qb6+ forces the queen exchange, then the white knight gets involved and queen exchange is easy after that. a typical sequence is Kf8, Qc8+, Kg7, Ne6+, Kh6, Qf8+ forcing the exchange.

[perseus]

On a second look this move is obvious, because it is the only way to keep checking the Black King and preventing the White King from being perpetually checked.

I would have probably have spotted this if I had actually been playing the game. It is by far the easiest route.

yitwail said:

Perseus, you may be right. the white king should have headed toward the knight. however, if he sacrificed the d pawn by promoting it first, then promoting the a pawn with check, the black king moves to the 7th rank, the queen checks on the 7th, then king must return to 8th, or else Qb6+ forces the queen exchange, then the white knight gets involved and queen exchange is easy after that. a typical sequence is Kf8, Qc8+, Kg7, Ne6+, Kh6, Qf8+ forcing the exchange.

[perseus]

Promotion to Knight
www.stansco.com/cgi-bin/nc_game.cgi?399626???

What was the reason?

Not analysed in depth. I did this OTB on the screen as though I was playing an OTB game rather than correspondence chess.

[Daniel]

Maybe Because I bet the next move Will be Kxe8 So I does not matter what It would have been.