The Underpromotion tactic is a maneuver in which you promote one of your pawns to a piece other than a Queen, such as a Knight, Rook, or Bishop. In the diagram above, if White promotes the e7-pawn to a Queen with 1.e8=Q, Black can win immediately with 1...Qg2#. Instead, White chooses to underpromote to a Knight with 1.e8=N, forking the black King and Queen, and then proceeds to play a winnable endgame.
The main reasons for underpromotions are to achieve a Knight fork (as in the above example) or to avoid stalemate.
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When we started adding a playful touch to chess learning, we looked through thousands of videos and hundreds of books to find the best resources out there. Here's our curated selection of the best content we encountered on Underpromotion tactics. We also included some smaller creators who are growing fast and we believe deserve your attention. Check out these resources if you want to master this tactical pattern.
This calm, clear YouTube short by Coach Daniel Greiner gives you in less than 60 seconds the perfect example of why underpromotion is such a powerful resource in some cases.
In this in-depth lesson by growing Coach Robert YouTube Channel, you learn in detail all the possible scenarios in which underpromotion is the way to go. Don’t skip it if you are an intermediate player.
Have fun with this Chess.com lesson by FM Mike Klein on underpromotion. This two-video series contains a great amount of really entertaining positions.
This book helps you understand the process behind most tactics. And helps you spot them with Martin Weteschnik‘s Status Examination approach. Follow all the moves with ease thanks to the interactive e-book reader.
An excellent collection of tactical exercises by Yakov Neishstadt. Several annotations and real-life games as sources make it really an ideal way to improve. Follow all the moves with ease thanks to the interactive e-book reader.
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