🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bt8zKE.FwH@news.larc.nasa.gov> goodrich@lynx.larc.nasa.gov (Mike Goodrich) writes:

>|> Why would anybody *ever* promote a pawn to a bishop?????? A queen should be
>|> able to do the job...
>|> 
>
>One reason would be to lessen the inducement for the opponent to capture
>it ...

There exist situations where the best move is to promote to a Bishop. E.g.,
if you promote to a Queen, the opponent can force you to stalemate him,
which he cannot do if you only have a Bishop. 

Less than ten years ago, a Russian problem composer finally succeeded into
producing a situation displaying the famous Babson task. This was first
published in Themes-64. In the position white can mate in five by allowing,
after his first move, black to promote a given pawn into either Q, R, B, or
N. These four defenses by black can only be overcome by promoting a given
white pawn into Q, R, B, or N, strictly according to what Black played.
Therefore, in four very similar same situations, the (only) best move is to
promote a pawn into any of the four different men.

Sorry I don't remember the composer name but I can post more info
(including the position) if people are interested.

--Philippe