Promote to Knight
By studying databases with millions of played games, one could see that 97% of promotions have been made to Queen. It makes sense, since it’s the most powerful piece. Still, there are cases where an ‘underpromotion’, that is promoting to Rook, Knight or Bishop would be more useful? World Champion Emanuel Lasker presented a position in which White is in serious trouble, that not even a promotion to Queen would solve.
FEN: 3n2nr/4Pqpp/2k5/8/8/8/2B3PP/6K1 w
Can anyone solve this in under 7 moves ? I don’t believe it can be done .
is this situation possible ???
1. exd8 =N+ followed by Nxf7 and Nxh8 leaving white a piece up
This case illustrates how promoting to knight can be advantageous. However there is no advantage to promoting to bishop or rook vs queen. Doing so may serve the same purpose if desirable outcome is assured, but the only “advantage” would be to rub your opponents face in it.
Promoting into a rook or bishop can help to avoid stalemating the opponent or create a situation in which you will be stalemated yourself.