Pawn promotion puzzlement

Relevant wiki: Chess Puzzles

Relevant wiki: Chess Puzzles - Reduced Games

If white promotes his pawn into a knight , only then can he immediately move 2 steps down and 1 step right to checkmate the king just in time (white only has one move to checkmate because black can move his last pawn down to make it into a stalemate).

Any other piece will not be able to checkmate the opponent in a single move. Therefore white should turn his pawn into a KNIGHT .

When White's pawn reaches the last row, if White promotes it to a queen, Black will play his last remaining pawn move on the left edge. After that, no matter what move White plays, it is a draw by stalemate.

The same thing happens if White promotes the pawn to a bishop or a rook. There is no way to avoid stalemate.

The "ah-ha" moment comes when White remembers the special power of a knight to jump over obstacles. White advances the pawn to the last row and promotes it to a knight. Black plays the last pawn move on the left edge. Now, White's knight hops two squares down and one to the right, checkmating Black's king just in time.

1. f8N a4 2. Ng6#

1. f8N a4 Black has no other moves left. Therefore, white has to only check black king to make checkmate. So, 2. Ng6#

If white promotes to any other piece, he has no checkmating move after it. Black cannot move anything, so it's stalemate! So, the answer is, white has to promote to $\boxed{Knight}$

Once we comprehend where the piece is now, we must try to guess what must happen if we choose what. If we were to choose queen, we would go down, eliminate the nearby pawn, then black's king would retrieve our queen. Knight, however, would go straight behind the pawn the queen would've eliminated. In this position, the black king must move; however if it were to go down, the white pawn would retrieve the black king. The game is now in checkmate and the knight was the correct choice.

We know that that the black king is trapped by its own pawns. The white pawn blocks it's only move.
We also know the only move black can make is moving pawn on a5 to a4, so we have to force a check or it is a stalemate.
We can see promoting to a queen does not work as it can't force check in any of the squares.

However a knight can force check by 8f to 6g. Checkmate!

If white promotes to a queen black can push the a5 pawn to a4 and then it's a stale mate but if white promotes to a knight on his next turn after black pushes a4, white can go knight to g7 and then it's checkmate.

Honestly, guessing would be your best bet to figure this one out: choose a piece, wait until black makes their move, and check which move(s), if any, will result in checkmate. Given that information, can you figure it out? If not, just look at the answer in the next post...

If white promotes his pawn into a knight, then can he instantaneously move the knight 2 squares down and 1 square right to checkmate the king. This would be a perfect move as white has a final move to checkmate as black can move his last pawn to produce a stalemate. No other piece would be able to produce a stalemate, therefore a KNIGHT should be the piece to be promoted to.

This is probably not in the sprit of problem solving but here goes anyway:

There are three possible answers, we know the third option is incorrect because the question says black can force a draw IF white picks the wrong piece, implying that IF white picks the correct piece black cannot force a draw.

That leaves two options, queen or knight. I am not a chess player but I would think a queen would normally be the best choice as it can duplicate the moves of everything else except the knight.

If Queen was the correct answer this would be quite an uninteresting problem, and so by this logic Knight is the answer.

Keep in mind that the pawn on G2 is stopping the king and all 4 pawns cold. Hence, we must promote to a piece that can check Black from the promotion square for checkmate, as otherwise Black forces a stalemate with its only move a4.

If White does f8Q, Black is forced to do a4, then White cannot check Black in any way. Hence, you can’t use a queen.

The rook and bishop are just limited queens, and they don’t work for the same reasons.

If White does f8N, Black is forced to do a4, then White CAN check Black by playing Ng6 (only winning move). The check is checkmate, hence White wins.

If it were Black's move, she would have only one legal move: ...a4. Nothing White can do can give Black any other legal move. Neither can anything White does for his second move give Black a legal move. As such, White must deliver checkmate at this move.

And White can do this, by promoting the pawn to a knight , as follows:

1. f8=N a4
2. Ng6#

Knight, so it can jump the barricade and force king into checkmate. TAKE THAT