Passed pawns and promotion
Push a passed pawn to a new queen, and know when to promote to something else.
The idea
A pawn that no enemy pawn can stop, on its way to becoming a queen.
- No black pawn stands in front of the white pawn.
- No black pawn stands on the files beside it either.
- So it is passed: only pieces can stop it becoming a queen.
In a game: Look for a pawn that no enemy pawn can block or take, and push it.
How the lesson begins
A pawn is passed when no enemy pawn stands in front of it or on the files next to it. No enemy pawn can block it or capture it on its way up, so the other side has to stop it with pieces and the king. A passed pawn is a constant threat to become a queen.
The white pawn on d5 is passed. The shaded squares, where an enemy pawn could stand, are all empty.
A question
To judge a race, draw a square from the pawn to its queening square. The pawn on b5 needs three moves to reach b8, so the square runs from b5 to e8. If the pawn is about to move and the defending king is inside the square, he catches it. If the king is outside, the pawn queens. White to move: can the pawn promote?
Show the answer
No, because the black king is inside the square and catches it.
Right. The king on e6 is inside the square. After b6 it steps to d7 and meets the pawn. The endgame tablebase (a database of perfectly solved endings) says the game is a draw.
In numbers
In the puzzle bank
1,823 puzzles in GreyChess’s bank practise it. Half of them are rated between 987 and 2,122.
The piece that makes the first move of the answer: pawn 59%, rook 15%, queen 11%, king 7%, bishop 4%, knight 4%, in puzzles from the Lichess puzzle database.