- published: 18 Jun 2013
- views: 876281
Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color (Just & Burg 2003:16). The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have already been captured (Schiller 2003:18–19). Every pawn that reaches its eighth rank must be promoted. Pawn promotion often decides the result of a chess endgame.
Since the queen is the most powerful piece, the vast majority of promotions in practical play are to a queen. Promotion to a queen is often referred to as queening. A promotion to a piece other than the queen is called underpromotion (Golombek 1977).
If the promoted piece is not available, FIDE rules are that the player should stop the game clock and summon the arbiter for the correct piece. In addition, under US Chess Federation rules and in casual play, an upside-down rook may be used to designate a queen (Just & Burg 2003:16–17).
Promotion may mean:
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.
Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns, each of these types of pieces moving differently. Pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces. The object of the game is to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by the voluntary resignation of one's opponent, which may occur when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways, where neither player wins. The course of the game is divided in three phases. The beginning of the game is called the opening (with the development of pieces). The opening yields to the phase called the middlegame. The last phase is the endgame, generally characterized by the disappearance of queens.