Saturday 7 October 2017

Most promotions

At Street Chess today I saw a game where one player promoted twice, so had three distinct queens during the game (but not at the same time). I don;t think that this is that unusual, as queenless endings often see a promotion, then a queen sac for the opponent remaining material, followed by a final promotion.
Promoting three times is no doubt rarer, although according to Tim Krabbe, there have been a few games where 3 pawns on each side have promoted. And the record for one side (in a serious game) is 4 times, as shown below. White even got in the act, promoting twice as well, meaning that the game had 8 queens taking part at various times!


Kubikova,Alena (2170) - Novy,Vaclav (2107) [B78]
Plzen op-A 9th Plzen (9), 24.08.2003



2 comments:

Chris Skulte said...

That was a cool game. Can't believe black won it.

whatteaux said...

Tredling-Benima, Winschoten 1896, ended with 5 queens on the board, according to Chernev in THe Chess Companion.