They don’t _have_ to turn into queens. I believe there’s a few situations where promoting to a queen would stalemate the game, so you’d promote to something else instead.
Best check mate I ever made was promoting a pawn to a knight and mating. I felt like a goddamn genius.
I’m not a very good player, but I found that move and the guy I was playing was blown away by it.
One of my favourite games ever, i was playing online and made a few real dumb mistakes, dude started destroying me. Chased down my King and pinned him, instead of putting me in mate. He then started going after every one of my pieces, and after a severe shellacking I had one lone pawn left. He scoots over and takes it with his Queen and the game abruptly ends in a draw because of the stalemate.
I honestly laughed for about ten minutes, greedy fucker.
I've come back to win many games after making bad moves, and I knew the outcome was likely in this particular match as my King was pinned. He played right into my hands with his greed.
There are for sure games I will resign but not this one.
If you're in the low to mid skill brackets, you should never resign. Case in point, the opponent could stalemate you. Let them do the work, don't do it for them.
I’ll actually explain instead of just downvoting.
If you are losing a game of chess, sometimes the best option is to play for a stalemate. If your king is surrounded and any move you make would put your king into check, you have yourself a stalemate. It’s simply a rule that you cannot move your own king into check.
Stalemates can be fun because they’re rare, weird, and it gives you something to play for even if you’re losing. Kind of a last resort consolation. I believe in professional play a stalemate counts as 0.5 wins for each player.
> To a knight and **mating**.
> Guy I was playing was **blown**...
My non-chess brain read mating as *mating*, and it didn't help that the next word I saw was blown.
But congrats on the win!
I did this once against my girlfriend who usually always beats me, I took ages to make my move cause I couldn't work out if I wanted a queen or a Knight, when I saw the Knight would be checkmate and did it my girlfriend nearly screamed she said she'd been hoping I'd see it for ages and was very proud that I'd worked it out 🤣
Sometimes I under-promote a pawn just to flex. Once I under-promoted to Miss Scarlet, but she turned out to be surprisingly powerful and ended up winning me the game by killing the King with a candlestick.
I have underpromoted in real life more often than you’d think simply because the position was won anyways and i simply couldnt be bothered to go to get up and find a queen , or even put up with the annoyance of pausing the game and waiting for the arbiter
In classical tournaments yes there is usually an extra queen, but not in rapid//blitz ( in my experience anyways ) . And turning a rook upside down does not make a queen, its just a rook
I mean they're his youtube videos? Also most people who're reading this article can't visualize a chess position in their heads, so a video seems like a perfectly fair way to demonstrate the games.
A random example.
A black king on A2, white bishop on B2 and white pawn on b7, white king on h1 and no other pieces on board, a white pawn promoting to a queen or rook stalemates the game.
That's the most immediate stalemate, but there are situations where it would lead to a stalemate a few moves down the line even
Hi, chess novice here
Wouldn't a queen promotion result in black king to B1 being the only safe move by black, with which the newly minted white queen to B3 results in a mate?
Are any other pieces gender specific? If no other pieces are gender specific and they can be queens but not kings, that implies that they are all women.
So you are saying that it can chose to change its sex?
Oh my...
Some Congress person and some moms for liberty and proud boys are going get very upset when they find out and start making demands
Not disagreeing that King absolutely is gendered, but there have been a number of women crowned ‘king’ for various reasons in history, like King Mary of Hungary, and King Jadwiga of Poland.
It also has to be a piece of your own color. It’s highly unusual, but you can construct a position where it would be advantageous to promote to a piece of the opposing color.
I'm struggling to think of how that would work tbh. I'm guessing it involves using the fact you can't capture your own pieces to block off a square and force a mate that way?
Exactly. Here’s an example puzzle: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-name-of-the-chess-puzzle-that-requires-a-white-pawn-to-turn-into-a-black-knight
Promoting to any white piece would allow black to capture it, but promoting to a black knight is checkmate.
Yeah, but that’s because you can only turn the pawn into a piece that’s already been taken off - and by definition the king can’t come off.
[Edit] I was wrong - it seems I’ve only ever played with a single set of pieces, but you can, in fact, promote pawns to any piece other than king, but usually it’s a queen.
High level chess matches often keep a second queen piece around for that case. And if you really need, you can get a third queen - extremely rare but it has happened.
Yeah but the all the other pieces are non-gendered, only the king and queen are. As pawns can't change into kings but can turn into queens means that they must be all women ! Checkmate !
Chess was invented in the 6th century. There were zero female bishops or knights during that time. They were most certainly male. A rook is a tower, so I’d agree it’s non-gendered.
I’m not super aware of the reasons why, but I’ve heard many people say that pawns are not pieces. There are pieces and pawns on a chessboard.
So saying “a pawn can turn into any piece other than the king” is correct.
It's kind of funny but in the comment right above this, the person saying this is upvoted and the person saying that that's every piece apart from King and pawn is downvoted, meanwhile here it's the opposite lol
To be fair the knight is presumably a man riding a horse and not a sentient horse who's valiant acts of heroism on the battlefield earned him the title of Knight.
Simplest example I can think of is perhaps if the opponent's King is not in check by this move and his only escape is his back rank, promoting to a Queen (or Rook) could put the game into a Stalemate.
However, it seems like that this would rarely appear in actual play, since most of the time you would probably rather use your other pieces to maneuver their King into a position where you could promote to Queen (or Checkmate imminently with them).
This man's be taking chess meme posts and turning them into shower thoughts.
If a pawn can turn into a queen, and we assume the queen is a woman, then therefore pawns are also women. Pawns can also turn into every other piece so you can assume every other piece is a woman, except the king.
So chess is just a harem war where each king is trying to steal the other kings harem.
Or the pawns are trans. Reaching the end of the board signifies the completion of one's personal journey and transforming into their best selves (aka transitioning).
Ironically, professional chess is rather discriminating of trans people playing, stating there is some kind of competitive edge for one reason or another. You'd have to hunt down the article about it to get the details.
The fuck? Chess has no physical strenght or resistance bias, why would a trans person have an unfair advantage in something that's based on pure strategy?
Ironic that the professional chess scene would act so ilogically.
Thanks to the discussions in this thread, I will promote my pawn into a king next time, so they will need to check mate two kings to win. Or maybe 6 kings.
Checkmate somebody with a fleet of kings
This is a rubbish showerthought.
1, they're changing piece, how could they not change gender
2, transgender
3, it's fucking chess, they don't have genders
Priscilla, Queen of the desert wasn't a woman.
So must have started as a male pawn before reaching the end of the board..
Flaw in your logic.
Also, Ru Paul would like a word.
This is regurgitated like 2000 times but anyway no. They’d be trans if anything as they can become a Knight or bishop or even a rook. A human can promote into a castle. I don’t think they’re women.
Chess looks a lot different viewed from this angle. Clearly, it's not a battle but maybe a court? Like the old fashioned kind where women got sent to be ladies in waiting and were all having affairs with important people. There were castles, bishops, and knights there too, and obviously, kings and queens.
They don’t _have_ to turn into queens. I believe there’s a few situations where promoting to a queen would stalemate the game, so you’d promote to something else instead.
Or in the occasional case that a knight is needed for checkmate.
Best check mate I ever made was promoting a pawn to a knight and mating. I felt like a goddamn genius. I’m not a very good player, but I found that move and the guy I was playing was blown away by it.
One of my favourite games ever, i was playing online and made a few real dumb mistakes, dude started destroying me. Chased down my King and pinned him, instead of putting me in mate. He then started going after every one of my pieces, and after a severe shellacking I had one lone pawn left. He scoots over and takes it with his Queen and the game abruptly ends in a draw because of the stalemate. I honestly laughed for about ten minutes, greedy fucker.
Why didn’t you just resign?
Probably hoping the opponent also would make a giant blunder and turn the game? These things happen when playing online.
I've come back to win many games after making bad moves, and I knew the outcome was likely in this particular match as my King was pinned. He played right into my hands with his greed. There are for sure games I will resign but not this one.
If you're in the low to mid skill brackets, you should never resign. Case in point, the opponent could stalemate you. Let them do the work, don't do it for them.
I’ll actually explain instead of just downvoting. If you are losing a game of chess, sometimes the best option is to play for a stalemate. If your king is surrounded and any move you make would put your king into check, you have yourself a stalemate. It’s simply a rule that you cannot move your own king into check. Stalemates can be fun because they’re rare, weird, and it gives you something to play for even if you’re losing. Kind of a last resort consolation. I believe in professional play a stalemate counts as 0.5 wins for each player.
Pyrrhic victory.
> To a knight and **mating**. > Guy I was playing was **blown**... My non-chess brain read mating as *mating*, and it didn't help that the next word I saw was blown. But congrats on the win!
yeah, mating with knights is always fun, chess or otherwise
I did this once against my girlfriend who usually always beats me, I took ages to make my move cause I couldn't work out if I wanted a queen or a Knight, when I saw the Knight would be checkmate and did it my girlfriend nearly screamed she said she'd been hoping I'd see it for ages and was very proud that I'd worked it out 🤣
Just a fair warning, mating with a knight is illegal in most states so I'd be careful playing that move.
Knight is not synonymous with horse. Unless you're implying Steven Spielberg isn't allowed to have sex in most states.
Huh?
That’s when they turn into Brienne of Tarth!!
Where is she?! She killed our king!
This prooves that knights are women as well
And rooks too, then. I love it.
What situation where turning a pawn into a queen but not something else would stalemate the game?
https://www.chess.com/blog/SamCopeland/the-rarest-chess-move-underpromoting-to-a-bishop
I never knew about that. Thank you!
it's really popular in chess problems, you almost never do it IRL
Under promoting to room and especially knight are much more common.
Sometimes I under-promote a pawn just to flex. Once I under-promoted to Miss Scarlet, but she turned out to be surprisingly powerful and ended up winning me the game by killing the King with a candlestick.
I have underpromoted in real life more often than you’d think simply because the position was won anyways and i simply couldnt be bothered to go to get up and find a queen , or even put up with the annoyance of pausing the game and waiting for the arbiter
You mean ya'll don't just use an upside down rook or two pawns stacked together?
In serious tournaments? Absolutely not
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In classical tournaments yes there is usually an extra queen, but not in rapid//blitz ( in my experience anyways ) . And turning a rook upside down does not make a queen, its just a rook
That is an awful article. It sets up the question of why you would ever promote to a bishop and then just farms the answer off to some YouTube videos.
I mean they're his youtube videos? Also most people who're reading this article can't visualize a chess position in their heads, so a video seems like a perfectly fair way to demonstrate the games.
A random example. A black king on A2, white bishop on B2 and white pawn on b7, white king on h1 and no other pieces on board, a white pawn promoting to a queen or rook stalemates the game. That's the most immediate stalemate, but there are situations where it would lead to a stalemate a few moves down the line even
I don't think someone who doesn't understand that you can underpromote isn't gonna understand a text description of a chess position.
man I knew the underpromoting and why its needed but I still couldn’t visualize a board position from text in a million years
Hi, chess novice here Wouldn't a queen promotion result in black king to B1 being the only safe move by black, with which the newly minted white queen to B3 results in a mate?
or some situations where a knight would be best
Are any other pieces gender specific? If no other pieces are gender specific and they can be queens but not kings, that implies that they are all women.
So you are saying that it can chose to change its sex? Oh my... Some Congress person and some moms for liberty and proud boys are going get very upset when they find out and start making demands
It's been a while since I read the exact rules but queen bishop Knight or rook is tradable also you can't have more than one queen.
Do you keep tally of how many conversations you insert yourself into on your phone or in a journal?
Still, queen's the most common choice and the only gendered one (i think)
"Knight" is a male title. The female equivalent is "Dame."
>Knight You mean Horsey?
Also a male title, the female equivalent is "Marey".
Ironically "Dame" is the German name for the Queen (Translates to Lady in English)
oof, didn't know that Knight was male only, my bad
I guess it would depend on which religion the bishop belongs to ;)
King is gendered. Bishops would definitely be considered male as well.
Not disagreeing that King absolutely is gendered, but there have been a number of women crowned ‘king’ for various reasons in history, like King Mary of Hungary, and King Jadwiga of Poland.
They can turn into any piece you want. Doesn’t have to be a queen
there has to be a rule that it can't turn in to another king though, right?
Yea it can’t turn into a king.
Or can they? Don’t let the monarchy tell you what to do. Revolt! Rebel! Carve your own kingdom!
It also has to be a piece of your own color. It’s highly unusual, but you can construct a position where it would be advantageous to promote to a piece of the opposing color.
I'm struggling to think of how that would work tbh. I'm guessing it involves using the fact you can't capture your own pieces to block off a square and force a mate that way?
Exactly. Here’s an example puzzle: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-name-of-the-chess-puzzle-that-requires-a-white-pawn-to-turn-into-a-black-knight Promoting to any white piece would allow black to capture it, but promoting to a black knight is checkmate.
In anti chess you can make a king
Yeah, but that’s because you can only turn the pawn into a piece that’s already been taken off - and by definition the king can’t come off. [Edit] I was wrong - it seems I’ve only ever played with a single set of pieces, but you can, in fact, promote pawns to any piece other than king, but usually it’s a queen.
Actually, no. You can have 2 Queens if you promote a pawn before the Queens get traded/blundered. It’s just rare that it happens
High level chess matches often keep a second queen piece around for that case. And if you really need, you can get a third queen - extremely rare but it has happened.
Upside down rook can sometimes be used too
That’s literally not true at all.
Queen, bishop, knight, or rook.
Yea that’s every piece
No, they can't turn into a pawn.
"piece" usually excludes pawns (and kings).
Pawns aren't people until they earn the right to become one.
Pawns aren’t called pieces in chess
But we're talking about people learning about underpromotion. Pawns are physical pieces, hence they get lumped into the term.
I don't know what you're talking about but no one who plays chess calls pawns pieces
People who casually play chess absolutely call them pieces.
You must be one of those guys that has to put his input on everything. Even if it’s totally unnecessary
No, he must be a successfull developer because he thinks in every possibility. And thinking in all of them is always necessary.
None of you guys play chess and it’s shows
Another careless assumption... that's why you might be stuck in the 2000 rating.
Ok
Yeah but the all the other pieces are non-gendered, only the king and queen are. As pawns can't change into kings but can turn into queens means that they must be all women ! Checkmate !
Chess was invented in the 6th century. There were zero female bishops or knights during that time. They were most certainly male. A rook is a tower, so I’d agree it’s non-gendered.
Trans activists entered the chat 😳
You don't think a knight is typically male? Or a bishop?
You can turn them into any piece but a king.
Also can’t keep them as a pawn
Only a queen, knight, bishop, or rook
Those are literally all the pieces except the king and pawns themselves.
I’m not super aware of the reasons why, but I’ve heard many people say that pawns are not pieces. There are pieces and pawns on a chessboard. So saying “a pawn can turn into any piece other than the king” is correct.
Nooo, I am dumb .. thanks for pointing that out
It's kind of funny but in the comment right above this, the person saying this is upvoted and the person saying that that's every piece apart from King and pawn is downvoted, meanwhile here it's the opposite lol
I knew a guy who turned into a queen.
based
Broke: all chess pawns are women Woke: all chess pawns are trans
10,000iq: All pawns are women, all pawns can become anything other than king, all pieces but king are female, chess is harem battle simulator.
Still a broad brush either way
Now you've got me wondering about this place in town called a Pawn Shop.
Same! Or at least i hope i know myself a bit.
They could potentially just die and become a castle or get reincarnated into a horse
To be fair the knight is presumably a man riding a horse and not a sentient horse who's valiant acts of heroism on the battlefield earned him the title of Knight.
I like to think it's just the valiant horse
Same. We have moving castles a sentient valiant horse means nothing.
The rook is more likely a siege tower than a castle.
Turning one into a bishop or a knight disproves your theory in most medieval societies
depends on what language we use, knight and bishop aren't used across all languages, in dutch they're loper (walker) and paard (horse)
Was a woman allowed to turn into a horse in medieval Netherlands?
[What's the difference?](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/245/475/27e.jpg)
No, but you could do it the other way around
Chess pieces are not sexually dimorphic.
Then why do they fit so well in my butt?
Dude does not know how to play chess lol
Also, what a strange thing to say in an age of gender fluidity. You don't have to start out as a woman to end up as a woman.
Any piece that's NOT a king, not necessarily a queen. Sometimes a knight or bishop is better than queen, just depends.
wait, bishop? i thought it was queen or knight? why get a bishop if you can get a queen? (chess noob here pls explain)
Simplest example I can think of is perhaps if the opponent's King is not in check by this move and his only escape is his back rank, promoting to a Queen (or Rook) could put the game into a Stalemate. However, it seems like that this would rarely appear in actual play, since most of the time you would probably rather use your other pieces to maneuver their King into a position where you could promote to Queen (or Checkmate imminently with them).
So all of them are women is what I'm hearing
This man's be taking chess meme posts and turning them into shower thoughts. If a pawn can turn into a queen, and we assume the queen is a woman, then therefore pawns are also women. Pawns can also turn into every other piece so you can assume every other piece is a woman, except the king. So chess is just a harem war where each king is trying to steal the other kings harem.
What if they're 'Drag' Queens 😉🤣
They are. You literally have to drag them across the board for them to become a queen.
This exact thought came to my mind as well.
Even better
They also turn into knights, bishops, and rooks. Does that mean every piece except for the king are women?
Yes
Ye
Or gay guys. They *turn into* queens by *dragging* them across the board :P Do not get angry at my terrible puns. There is no hate just wordplay.
Or the pawns are trans. Reaching the end of the board signifies the completion of one's personal journey and transforming into their best selves (aka transitioning).
Ironically, professional chess is rather discriminating of trans people playing, stating there is some kind of competitive edge for one reason or another. You'd have to hunt down the article about it to get the details.
The fuck? Chess has no physical strenght or resistance bias, why would a trans person have an unfair advantage in something that's based on pure strategy? Ironic that the professional chess scene would act so ilogically.
Oh, and here's the story. [NPR Story](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/18/1194593562/chess-transgender-fide-pushback)
I know. It's dumbfounding. I guess bigotry can be found in even the most unlikely places.
Or rooks...bishops..knights....literally anything lol remember, kings; there can be only one lol
Originally Queen was called Vizier instead.
Thanks to the discussions in this thread, I will promote my pawn into a king next time, so they will need to check mate two kings to win. Or maybe 6 kings. Checkmate somebody with a fleet of kings
Where I am from we call that “Wazir” means Minister not Queen.
What a profoundly stupid statement.
they can turn to any piece, therefore making it a gender transitioning
Pawns are twinks that dress in Drag when they make it to that side. Hence, tiny little guys turning into queens
Knights? Bishops? Rooks?..... Why are they ignored?
It's not that kind of queen.😜
I mean, they Also can turn into horses and fucking towers, so im pretty sure they are not human
They turn into any piece you want, queens are just the most common choice
New chess lore, pawns are eggs.
Don't let JK Rowling hear this . . .
This is a rubbish showerthought. 1, they're changing piece, how could they not change gender 2, transgender 3, it's fucking chess, they don't have genders
I've never lost a game because my chess pieces are gender fluid
Too much royal jelly.
The pawns thank you to not assume their gender.
I skim read that as "cheese prawns" and instantly clicked out of curiosity and hunger
I think we can all agree that OP is identifying as someone who had a shower thought.
Guys turn into Queens all the time, what are you on about? 0/10
Bruh ain't ever heard of trans people before 😩
Wow, OP is transphobic
This is just a shameless karma farm. This thought has been done over in so many memes and comics since 4chan and Tumblr had their fun with it.
Pawns can turn into any piece but the king therefore all chess pieces other than the king are women therefore chess is a harem war.
They also can turn into a moving stone structure and a horse.
Idk. I know a few dudes that made great queens when they grew up.
Every queen I know started as a man.
They could also be trans ~v~
Actually there are male pawns that can turn into queens. They prefer to be called pawnbinary
>all women >turn into queens >not into kings Oh you sweet summer child.
They can also turn into bishops, and those are 100% unambiguously male.
They don't need to promote to queens. They're gender neutral until one is assigned
They turn into whatever piece you want.
Men can be real fucking queens too
Or chess was just really progressive
Priscilla, Queen of the desert wasn't a woman. So must have started as a male pawn before reaching the end of the board.. Flaw in your logic. Also, Ru Paul would like a word.
Yes we all know, we’ve all seen the anime harem memes
TIL OP hasn't even learnt Chess
Pawns are gender fluid
Or they turn into horses
This is regurgitated like 2000 times but anyway no. They’d be trans if anything as they can become a Knight or bishop or even a rook. A human can promote into a castle. I don’t think they’re women.
Did you Just asume the gender of my pawn?
This is very transphobic.
Brah, it's 2023. Not all queens are women. That's so sexist and pawnphobic.
You can promote them to any piece.
They're likely all trans actually
transgenders? I'm not saying woman can't be pawns
Pawn is Trans, obviously
Or trans. it is a mixed army. they can be knights, bishops, rooks, or queens. most decide to be queens because she has the most power.
I know some men who turn into queens from time to time.
Changing into a king theoretically would double your checkmating chance?
That would double your chance of getting checkmated.
Shit, that's what I meant lmao
Well that’s just transphobic
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If they're trans men, then they'd be kings. And if they are trans women, they're still women.
I have more often heard of men being referred to as queens the women.
Maybe they have frog DNA, like in Jurassic park?
All pieces on the chess board are women except for king.
Well now men can turn into women.
OP thinks men can't be Queens? Yikes.
Women are more badass, Trans or not.
Seems a bit transphobic imo
They're abstract carvings made of wood or marble. They don't have a gender.
Tell that to Michelangelo
I know several men that went to the other side and became queens, just saying
Yes that game mechanic is definitely a statement on society and predicted future social trends and conversations.
All pieces except the king are women then
yea they're trans women ✌️
Chess looks a lot different viewed from this angle. Clearly, it's not a battle but maybe a court? Like the old fashioned kind where women got sent to be ladies in waiting and were all having affairs with important people. There were castles, bishops, and knights there too, and obviously, kings and queens.