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Subject: Re: Underpromoting other than to a knight

Author: Peter Kappler

Date: 15:24:19 01/29/98

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On January 29, 1998 at 17:57:00, David Fotland wrote:

>I know that some positions require underpromoting a pawn to a knight,
>but are there any that win with an underpromote to a bishop or rook?
>
>I'd like to limit the move generator to just queen and knight
>promotions.
>

Underpromoting to rook or bishop is so incredibly rare that you can
probably safely ignore it.  On the other hand, I think any speedup you
get from this will be negligible, especially since the variations with
the underpromotions will get cutoff quickly.

I'd love to see an example from a real game where a promotion to bishop
or rook occurred (and was necessary).  Can anybody out there produce
one?

I do know of a study by Saavedra (sp?) which was cooked by an
underpromotion to a rook.  (It's a rook versus pawn position, where the
pawn can't be stopped from promoting, but if it is promoted to a queen,
black has an amazing stalemate resource.  However, promoting to a rook
avoids the stalemate, and leads to a forced mate in 2.)

I'll find the position tonight and post it - it's a beautiful study.

--Peter



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