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This is why in some rare endgames you might want to promote to a knight instead of a queen to avoid a stalemate!

by lovecg 3y ago

MaxikCZ 3y ago
I dont get it. Queen can do everything a knight can, and then some. How can electing a knight instead of queen can be of any usefulness? Or do you mean it avoids stalemate by making it harder for the elector to defend/attack, and loose? I dont see any advantage there, isnt stalemate always preffered to loosing?
- have_faith 3y ago
  A knight can attack squares the queen cannot. There are positions that promoting to a knight is checkmate, but a queen would lose.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Sometimes it's tactically crucial that the promotion is a check, and in these cases you might need a knight. Making a knight to avoid stalemate is actually extremely rare, because very often a knight isn't enough to win. Making a rook is more common there, but even that's rare.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  Promotion generally happens when there are very few pieces on the board, and often the opponent's king is the only piece they can move, and it often is close to the promotion square since it was likely trying to block it. If the promoting piece can't check but immediately blocks the last movement squares for that king, as a queen may easily accidentally do, the player who has only the king gets a stalemate draw out of a technically lost position.
eru 3y ago
Chess would be a more elegant game without the stalemate rule. (And apparently it would be a more _interesting_ game without castling. At least according to the game that the AIs at Deep Mind played when they trained them on this variant on a whim. Castling was supposed to speed up development of chess, but it favours the defense a lot. So what the game's appeal wins from castling in cutting out some busy work moves, it loses in attacking spirit.)
- seanhunter 3y ago
  Extremely strong disagree with this[1], and the obvious question that arises is what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? Would the other side win? Would the stalemated side pass? Neither seems at all satisfactory. The non-castling variant was invented by Vladimir Kramnik[2] explored by Deep Mind not on a whim but specifically as part of Vlad's exploration of whether this chess variant would help to revitalise the game given how computer evaluation has affected theory.[3] There were also a couple of no-castling tournaments played, but like chess960[4], opinions were very much divided about whether or not it was actually any kind of improvement. [1] Even though I pretty much always fall into stalemate traps in blitz. [2] Former world champion and lately old guy shouting at clouds about cheating [3] https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik-alphazero https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik... [4] https://lichess.org/variant/chess960 https://lichess.org/variant/chess960
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    > what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? The game keeps going until one side gets too tired and gives up (or makes a mistake that breaks the stalemate). Another idea would be a "Fortnite rule": after $X turns, the outermost edge of the board kills any pieces left in it (or becomes "the storm" in Fortnite parlance); repeat every $X turns until someone's forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range.
    - seanhunter 3y ago
      What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. That's what I was asking - do they get to "pass" and the other side gets to move? This is how it works in the game of go for instance. In chess that would be more or less equivalent to the non-stalemated player winning, because in many stalemate positions if you had an extra move you could checkmate. The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] I'm not seriously entertaining your Fortnite rule. That is such a radical departure from the game of chess as not to be the same at all, so you could have that as a chess variant or whatever but it's fundamentally a different game. [1] https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC [2] Defending king in the corner with the opposing queen a knight's move away and no other legal moves for the defender. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-trap-in-action https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-tra...

This is why in some rare endgames you might want to promote to a knight instead of a queen to avoid a stalemate!

by lovecg 3y ago

This is why in some rare endgames you might want to promote to a knight instead of a queen to avoid a stalemate!

I dont get it. Queen can do everything a knight can, and then some. How can electing a knight instead of queen can be of any usefulness? Or do you mean it avoids stalemate by making it harder for the elector to defend/attack, and loose? I dont see any advantage there, isnt stalemate always preffered to loosing?

have_faith 3y ago
A knight can attack squares the queen cannot. There are positions that promoting to a knight is checkmate, but a queen would lose.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Sometimes it's tactically crucial that the promotion is a check, and in these cases you might need a knight. Making a knight to avoid stalemate is actually extremely rare, because very often a knight isn't enough to win. Making a rook is more common there, but even that's rare.
PeterisP 3y ago
Promotion generally happens when there are very few pieces on the board, and often the opponent's king is the only piece they can move, and it often is close to the promotion square since it was likely trying to block it. If the promoting piece can't check but immediately blocks the last movement squares for that king, as a queen may easily accidentally do, the player who has only the king gets a stalemate draw out of a technically lost position.

eru 3y ago

Chess would be a more elegant game without the stalemate rule. (And apparently it would be a more _interesting_ game without castling. At least according to the game that the AIs at Deep Mind played when they trained them on this variant on a whim. Castling was supposed to speed up development of chess, but it favours the defense a lot. So what the game's appeal wins from castling in cutting out some busy work moves, it loses in attacking spirit.)

seanhunter 3y ago
Extremely strong disagree with this[1], and the obvious question that arises is what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? Would the other side win? Would the stalemated side pass? Neither seems at all satisfactory. The non-castling variant was invented by Vladimir Kramnik[2] explored by Deep Mind not on a whim but specifically as part of Vlad's exploration of whether this chess variant would help to revitalise the game given how computer evaluation has affected theory.[3] There were also a couple of no-castling tournaments played, but like chess960[4], opinions were very much divided about whether or not it was actually any kind of improvement. [1] Even though I pretty much always fall into stalemate traps in blitz. [2] Former world champion and lately old guy shouting at clouds about cheating [3] https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik-alphazero https://www.chess.com/article/view/no-castling-chess-kramnik... [4] https://lichess.org/variant/chess960 https://lichess.org/variant/chess960
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > what would you do if a side is in stalemate and there isn't a stalemate rule? The game keeps going until one side gets too tired and gives up (or makes a mistake that breaks the stalemate). Another idea would be a "Fortnite rule": after $X turns, the outermost edge of the board kills any pieces left in it (or becomes "the storm" in Fortnite parlance); repeat every $X turns until someone's forced into checkmate because there's only a 2×2 square left and nowhere else for the kings to go except within each others' attack range.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    What do you mean the game keeps on going? One side has to move but has no legal moves. That's what I was asking - do they get to "pass" and the other side gets to move? This is how it works in the game of go for instance. In chess that would be more or less equivalent to the non-stalemated player winning, because in many stalemate positions if you had an extra move you could checkmate. The stalemate rule adds something that the attacking player has to keep in mind and gives the defending player something to shoot for - lots of creative and tricky play arises from this, with IM Eric Rosen being the most famous exponent[1] so much so that he now has a particular type of stalemate trap named after him.[2] I'm not seriously entertaining your Fortnite rule. That is such a radical departure from the game of chess as not to be the same at all, so you could have that as a chess variant or whatever but it's fundamentally a different game. [1] https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC https://youtu.be/YB_LLivPlY8?si=dWl2bEAEeRmzhBiC [2] Defending king in the corner with the opposing queen a knight's move away and no other legal moves for the defender. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-trap-in-action https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/the-rosen-tra...