[jibal]

Why would you need to search for a queen piece when yours is already captured? No doubt promoting to multiple queens happens in casual games between very weak players, but extremely rarely in tournament play (where you also don't see "stubborn" players playing on in "decisive" positions unless the winning side has very little time on the clock).

Also, for in-person games, an upside down rook can be used as a queen in a pinch.

[hibikir]

It's more common than you think in queen and pawn endgames. It might even end in a dear with two queens in one side: It wasn't on the board because there were other fighting alternatives, but it was pretty close to happening just last week in the Grand Chess Tour finals, where Caruana saw that a second queen wouldn't stop MVL from getting a perpetual.

I'd not say it happens in every tournament, but many active tournament players will see it every year or two. It just happens that at the higher levels, chances are the set came with two queens, as upside down rooks are not great indicators for DGT boards.

The stubborn player situation will happen in real tournaments too, just not those full of GMs. It will happen in your typical rated weekly tournament in the St Louis chess club, where your top tables might not be IMs, or in scholastic tournaments.

[umanwizard]

Tournaments doesn’t necessarily mean strong tournaments. There are tons of tournaments full of random kids and amateurs.

Btw, the upside-down-rook trick is illegal in serious play.

[opello]

Can you explain why that is? I'd like to believe there's a reasonable explanation.

Using a proxy piece seems like an expedient, reasonable solution. A small square of paper with a Q on it?

[jibal]

As stated it's wrong--there aren't special rules for "serious play" as opposed to non-serious play. However, it's illegal under FIDE rules, but allowed under USCF rules (which cover many "serious" tournaments).

And I'm amused by another response that says that it's more common than I think and then cited a case where it "almost" happened, and says "many active tournament players will see it every year or two", as if that's not "extremely rare".

[umanwizard]

> there aren't special rules for "serious play" as opposed to non-serious play

Of course there are. We don’t follow every rule in the FIDE handbook when I play at Christmas with my brother in law.

For example, I would bet that in 99% of home games, touch-move is not enforced.

> allowed under USCF rules

interesting, I didn’t know that.

[jibal]

The discussion was about tournament rules, not what you do at Christmas, where the FIDE rules have no jurisdiction. And even if they did, what are these "special rules"? I don't think that you made a serious attempt to engage with what I wrote but instead were intent on naysaying, so I won't comment further.

[opello]

> As stated it's wrong

Restatement of the premise is not an explanation. I asked "why."

> However, it's illegal under FIDE rules

Under which rule[1]? I anticipate the argument being one of identity, such as "a rook is a rook whether it is right side up or upside down." This is an argument of convention. I don't see a CAD model that describes a rook's physical representation. If both players were to agree that for the sake of a promotion that an overturned rook would in fact be played like a queen the piece identity requirement would be satisfied and no descriptive rule would be violated. Or perhaps a coin, or a stone, or anything of suitable size and ergonomics.

[1] https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf

[umanwizard]

FIDE arbiter guidelines, page 17:

> When a player places an inverted (upside–down) Rook on the promotion square and continues the game, the piece is considered as a Rook, even if he names it as a “Queen” or any other piece. If he moves the upside-down rook diagonally, it becomes an illegal move.

Link: https://arbiters.fide.com/wp-content/uploads/Publications/Ma...

This is not a philosophical question about metaphysics, where the rook’s true essence can be converted to that of a queen because really, what are the queens and rooks anyway but abstract symbols? The rook is the physical object that everyone in the tournament hall recognizes as a rook, which nobody has a problem identifying in practice.

[opello]

That's interesting, but I wonder if it's not more accurate to say "tradition doesn't support the use of an inverted rook as a promoted queen's proxy" or "FIDE would prefer not using inverted rooks as a promoted queen proxy" instead? Unfortunately neither explain why this is the preference, but avoiding ambiguity for observers seems obvious.

My thinking is that if we take "many active tournament players will see it every year or two" as the absence of a strict prohibition, and that this description of how it is illegal occurs in the "Arbiters' Manual," which self-describes as guidelines for arbiters and in the preface explains that rules can't cover every situation which is why the arbiters exist, but not in the actual rules document, it seems less "illegal" and more "unadvised."

I did not wax metaphysical, quite the opposite with the desire to find a definition for how one identifies a given piece. I imagine there are some other tournament organizational guidelines which outlines how chess sets are chosen for official events. These conventions taken in aggregate would provide some perspective, but still not answer the original question. I wager that everyone in your tournament hall would also recognize the use of an inverted rook as a promoted queen. So if it's not a question of avoiding ambiguity, then I wonder again, "why?"

There is a shorter version of this reply, which I will now include below:

At the end of the table of contents there is another interesting note in an offset grey box, just like the box which contains the note you quoted above:

> IMPORTANT:

> Throughout this manual, text which appears in a box such as this one is given as advice and is the opinion of a number of experienced arbiters. It does not form part of the Laws nor the Regulations in which it appears.

[jibal]

I didn't "restate the premise", I said it was wrong, and added information. Since I wasn't present when the FIDE hammered out their rules, I don't know why they decided that upside down rooks can't be used as queens, and any speculation on my part would be no more authoritative than your own imagination.

I tried to be helpful and I got an aggressively hostile response. (And I see that the same happened to others here.) I won't make that mistake again.

[opello]

> I didn't "restate the premise", I said it was wrong, and added information.

You originally wrote:

> Btw, the upside-down-rook trick is illegal in serious play.

You followed up to my asking for an explanation why with:

> As stated it's wrong

It seems like a very low effort restatement to say "illegal" and then "wrong." Your additional details were about the FIDE rules, which do not seem to forbid using an inverted rook as a proxy for a promoted queen. If they do, please tell me which rule[1]. The pivot from "illegal" to "wrong" adds a moral aspect to the evaluation which seems bizarre.

> I tried to be helpful and I got an aggressively hostile response.

I'm sorry if my spinning of a hypothetical yarn about the argument being one of identity of the piece in question came across as "aggressively hostile." It was not my intention in the least.

> And I see that the same happened to others here.

I grant you the other thread got more antagonistic and that's disappointing. I will defend that I think that if you want to claim the rules forbid this act, you should be able to cite a rule, and not a guideline about general consensus. The former is clear, the latter is something more akin to "tradition."

I'm also, across both of these descendant threads, annoyed with responses not readily engaging with my legitimate inquiry about why forbidding the use of the inverted rook as a promoted queen proxy may be the case. It's a neat quirk or curiosity to me. And I'm barely a casual player. It seems like an elegant solution to piece availability and actually preserves game pace -- those are aspects of the elegance that seem obvious to me.

[1] https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf

[umanwizard]

Apparently it’s allowed under USCF (US Chess Federation) rules, according to my sibling comment, just not under FIDE (international) rules.

Anyway, I’ve never stopped and thought about why it’s not allowed — it just seems like it obviously shouldn’t be, in serious competition. If at an NBA game they ran out of basketballs, they’d stop the game until they got one, not use a soccer ball instead.

It’s hard to imagine that at an actual FIDE-rated tournament with arbiters, etc., they would be unable to find a queen piece to use.

[opello]

> it just seems like it obviously shouldn’t be, in serious competition

Why does it seem obvious? Out of some sense of accessibility to third party observers?

> If at an NBA game they ran out of basketballs, they’d stop the game until they got one, not use a soccer ball instead.

This is an unreasonable straw man because basketballs and soccer balls behave quite differently. A marble would be less suitable than an overturned rook because it may roll away, but both are similarly graspable with similar dexterity.

[umanwizard]

> Why does it seem obvious? Out of some sense of accessibility to third party observers?

I can think of lots of reasons.

1. It looks cheesy and unprofessional to use random objects instead of the pieces the game is supposed to be played with; you might not think this is a good reason but keep in mind we are talking about a game that until recently everyone played wearing a suit and tie.

2. It is distracting and impedes comprehension and calculation if the design of the actual pieces is burned into your pattern recognition — not only for observers, but for the players themselves. A lot of official chess rules, e.g. the touch-move rule, are just about not annoying your opponent.

3. It opens up ambiguity about what was actually intended. What if later the player tries to claim they really did mean a rook? What if a player accidentally turns one of their actual rooks upside down during the course of a game — is it still a rook, or are they trying to cheat by turning it into a queen? Etc.

4. It does not work with high-end electronic chessboards that automatically record moves (DGT).

5. Last but not least: there is absolutely no reason to allow this, because it’s impossible to imagine that at a serious tournament the arbiter wouldn’t be able to find an extra queen. And stopping the clock and asking for an arbiter, while still a bit distracting to others, is surely less distracting than starting a discussion with the opponent about whether it’s okay to use an overturned rook or any other random object as the queen.

[benmmurphy]

i can definitely see someone stalemating with the rook-queen then claiming its actually a rook so its not a stalemate.

[noirscape]

In most board games, proxy pieces are generally forbidden in official play. For say, a card game it's because the game store owns the cards and would really prefer it if you didn't dillute the value of the cards they're also selling to people, not to mention they also have the actual cards in stock anyway. On a similar note, chess tournaments and clubs will almost always have enough pieces to not need proxies since there's only 4 unique pieces that you'd potentially need to add for (all the officials minus the king, in practice it's usually only the Queen and the Knight though), so any extra/reserve chess set can provide the bonus piece.

In casual play outside of formal tournaments and chess clubs, proxy pieces exist because nobody is buying extra chess kits solely to cover for the event in which someone promotes a queen while another queen is on the board. (Also in very casual play, most players lose their Queen due to a mistake early on and if they promote a piece to Queen later, they just use the original Queen piece again.) Proxy pieces exist to cover people playing at home, not people playing professionally or at a hobby club. The same goes for card games; nobody cares if you're proxying a card during casual play - maybe they'd ask if you own the card, but that's about it.

[porkbrain]

Exactly. In my region there are multiple tournaments a month (in season) where players from no ELO to 2300 play. Swiss system means you're going to be paired up/down.

I'm ~1900 which means first two rounds are typically beginners.