EMPLOY THE DEAD!
SAM LOYD'S DUMMY PROMOTION
The chess problem
below is No. 117 (p. 120)
in Sam Loyd and His
Chess Problems
by Alain C. White (Dover Publications, 1962 reprint). White gives the
1898
source on the diagram and also mentions that the problem was reprinted
in
a collection of Loyd's problems by Max Weiss in 1903. White, a friend
of
Loyd, writes that "while
unquestionably
by Loyd, [it] is a freak that he never acknowledged in his collections
.
. ." Despite the contempt that apparently both
White and Loyd
had for the problem, it is a remarkable composition. It is easy to
construct
an endgame position in which only promotion to an immobile
"Dummy
Pawn" secures a draw by stalemate. It is not so simple to construct, as
Loyd
has done, a position in which this option is the shortest path to
checkmate
of your opponent. Loyd may not have been the first to compose such a
task,
since according to White there was an early fad for similar
compositions
(p. 407). But it would probably now be hard to find an earlier example,
and
if Loyd knew of one, likely his setting is superior.
If the option had always been available to "promote" a Pawn to a Dummy
Pawn, this would probably never have been a good choice in all the
games of
chess that have ever been played. According to H. J. R. Murray (A History of Chess,
p. 835, note 36)
this was
permitted in an English
code of rules of 1862. Murray states "This
absurdity has been justly condemned by the common sense of players. It
has
not the slightest historical justification." Just what
qualifies a
rule for a game to be "absurd" is not clear, and
every innovation
begins without "historical justification." And suppose there has been a
game
or two in the last two centuries in which a player's best move was to
promote to a Dummy Pawn. Then what a shame that this option was denied
and we were deprived of such an amazingly rare strategy.
Since such a promotion would have no impact on the way chess is played,
why not allow it? You may counter, why bother? Here are some
reasons: (1) it slightly simplifies the rules of chess, reducing the
exceptions to promotion from two to one (no promotion to King); (2) for
problems and endgame studies, it would add a thematic possibility, and
(3) allowing dummy Pawns on the last rank might enable or simplify
certain compositional tasks. Changing (expanding) the rules of chess to
allow dummy promotion might lead to consideration of other changes, of
real significance, that could improve the game of chess and challenge
its current domination by computers.
1.
c7xd8 (P)! Bd7-f5+
2. Re5xf5
1.
. . .
Bd7-c6+
2. b5xc6
1.
. . .
Bd7xc8
2. f8 (Q)+
1. c7xd8 (B)?
Bd7-f5+
2.
Ke4-d4 Bf4xc8
1. c7xd8 (S)?
Bd7-c6+
2.
Ke4-d4 Bc6xa8
Linked to from: Chess
with Chinese Pieces by Daniel
W. VanArsdale
Index
page of Daniel VanArsdale.