Pawn Promotion

• What Is Pawn Promotion?
• How Many Queens Can You Have In Chess?
• What Is Underpromotion?
• Why Is Pawn Promotion Important?
• Notation Notes
• Test Your Skills
• Wrapping Up
• Pawn Promotion Video

What Is Pawn Promotion?

Are you familiar with the term “pawn promotion”? Is it difficult to understand? No, it’s not but it is an important concept to grasp as you learn the game of chess. A beginning player is often amazed that a pawn can be converted into a powerful piece. All the pawn has to do is to march from its original square to the other end of the chessboard.

Promoting a pawn is one of the rewards of playing an endgame successfully. If you can move a pawn to the opposite end of a board without your opponent capturing it, you deserve a reward. You have the opportunity to replace the pawn with a valuable piece such as a queen. The pawn is then removed from the board. When a queen is chosen, this move is known as “queening the pawn.”

How Many Queens Can You Have In Chess?

Every pawn can be promoted to a queen (although this possibility is quite unlikely). However, if each pawn survives to the final rank and promotes to a queen and the original queen is still alive, each player could have nine queens—for a total of 18 queens on the board. Nevertheless, don’t expect to see so many queens in a game.

What Is Underpromotion?

Actually a pawn can be promoted to a piece other than a queen. It can also be promoted to a rook, bishop, or knight. When a pawn is promoted to one of these pieces, it is known as underpromotion because a piece less valuable than a queen is selected. Sometimes an underpromotion is chosen to deliver checkmate, avoid a stalemate, or gain tempo.

Because the queen is the most powerful piece, it is usually chosen as the piece that the promoted pawn becomes — but not always. It always depends on which piece you need immediately when the pawn is promoted. There is no limit on how many of a piece such as a queen that you have active on the chessboard.

Why Is Pawn Promotion Important?

A pawn promotion may be the key to winning an otherwise equal game. Just being able just to threaten a pawn promotion may give you a significant advantage in an endgame.

Notation Notes

When you record the moves of a game, it’s important to know the official FIDE way to show a pawn promotion. Because it’s a pawn move, the notation begins with the square where the pawn moves such as c8. (Do you know how the squares on a chessboard are labeled? If not, learn more here.)

Next the designation of the piece that the pawn is being promoted to is added to the notation. For example, when a pawn advances to the eighth rank of the c-file and then is promoted to a queen, the move is recorded as c8Q. If the pawn is underpromoted to a piece such as a bishop, the format is similar; however, instead of being c8Q, it is now c8B.

If on the eighth rank the advancing pawn captures a piece (such as a rook), the capture is recorded as usual and next the designation of the piece that the pawn is promoted to is added to complete the notation. For example, a pawn on the seventh rank of the d-file captures a bishop on the eighth rank of the e-file and then is promoted to a queen. The notation would be dxeQ.

Sometimes an equal sign or a pair of parentheses is used to record a pawn promotion, such as c8=Q or c8(Q); however, this format is not officially used by FIDE.

Test Your Skills

Now that you know about pawn promotion, let's test your skills! Take a look at this position. What would be the best move?

Wrapping Up

Can you imagine having an extra queen during an endgame? That possibility can be yours if you can advance a pawn from its original square to the opposite end of the chessboard.

Pawn promotions are important moves in many games because they can create threats as well as change the outcomes. Make sure that you are ready to promote your pawns when you can.

Pawn Promotion Video