Pawn Promotion to... Bishop?

There's a question I've been pondering for many years and finally need some resolution.

You know in a chess game, when you finally get a pawn to the other side and have the opportunity to promote him to a better piece?

who in their right mind would choose a bishop or a rook over a queen?  I can understand sometimes a knight, if the L-shape is tactically to your advantage.  But a bishop or rook can only move diagonally or laterally, whereas the queen can do both. Seems like a pretty obvious choice.

Just curious, has anyone here actually chosen a bishop or rook in this situation?  And if so... why?  self-hatred?  amusement?  satire?

Sometimes a queen would cause stalemate.

Oh. I was hoping it was satire.

i've never done it in a game, but there are several puzzles where underpromoting to a rook is required.  i have seen some where you have to promote to a bishop, but these seem like the are constructed specically so you have to promote to a bishop rather than resembly a real game situation. 

That too.

I was just wondering if it would ever be appropritate to have him ramain a pawn.  To me, it's the most appealing shape there is.  Plus, he's kind of a scrappy little guy. 

I wonder when it's good to promote to a checker.

Just wondering.

Bishop underpromotions are the least common by a significant margin, but they do happen on very rare occasions. As mentioned above, it's usually for stalemate reasons.

It's much more common to see the idea in puzzles though.

There used to be a rule allowing that; but it was removed. In any case, that kind of situation did appear in some puzzles; but the chances of that happening in a real game are probably infinitesimal. (The wording of the original rule also seemed to allow promotion to an enemy piece; but that was patched too.)

The most common case of underpromotion is to humiliate your opponent.

What happens if you declare "king me" when you promote?!?

silly rabbit, you can't promote to a king. 

In this composition, which won first prize in a composing contest in 1933, it's White to play, and win.  In order to win he must first underpromote to a knight, then later a bishop, and then later a rook!

http://www.edcollins.com/chess/under-promote.htm

 

Exactly, I had game where a Queen would have caused a stalemate but the Rook was a winner.

Sometimes Queen is such overkill, that I don`t mind choosing rook or bishop. They`ll do the job just as well.

to humiliate my opponent, i sometimes make a big deal about promoting EVERY surviving pawn to a queen (and hiding these queens behind other pieces, so i dont stale mate) and then bringing them out in a hilarious fashion to kill the king

Generally you save that for an opponent that refuses to resign in a completely lost position. They have zero hope of winning and no real hope of a draw yet they won't give up.

yeah, those are the ones.

specially the ones that spam the "DRAW" button when they see all hope is lost

Sometimes an underpromotion to a bishop is the quickest way to checkmate.

Sam Loyd, mate in 3 moves:

yup, and it works too.

Since we're talking about underpromotion it would seem that a rook would be somewhat more apt. But I am not going to argue with the esteemed Mr. Loyd.