Under-promotion to bishop/rook happens from time-to-time. I've only seen it in three cases: The pawn will be captured regardless of what it's promoted to, and the promoting player wants to be cocky It's checkmate with just a bishop or just a rook, and the promoting player wants to be cocky (in those cases, a queen would mate also) Promoting to a queen is stalemate Of those, the only one that's interesting is #3. It's extremely rare, but has happened in tournament games. For example, in the game Ruben - Sultan Khan, 1930: Playing 1. f8=Q leaves Black in stalemate, but 1. f8=R does not (though 1. Kf6! would have been better :) ) Here is another example (Vasiukov - Tukmakov, 1976) White, in a last-ditch effort, played 1. Rg1+ - 1.. hxg1=Q would be stalemate! Black responded 1.. hxg1=R! 0-1 Under-promotion to knight is more common (though still very rare) than to rook/bishop because, unlike rooks/bishops, the knight has the possibility to attack squares the queen cannot, which can sometimes be necessary to win material or force checkmate.
First seen: 2025-10-07 20:11
Last seen: 2025-10-08 04:12