ISSUE ON PAWN PROMOTION

The Teh Tarik session
This happen at about 3 months ago, shortly after we (Razali, Nik Farouqi, Saprin and yours truly) simultaneously received our 'lesson' from GM Ziaur Rahman, we decided to have a teh tarik at Kassim's. Topics discuss varied. From World Cup to Paul the Octopus to conspiracy theory and about national closed.

Suddenly Saprin mentioned about his game against top junior in which his opponent queening one of his pawn. Saprin said that should his opponent touch, say bishop (that locate outside the board) while in the process of reaching for the queen, he will asked his opponent to promote the pawn to a bishop as per Touch Move Law.

Interesting!

This statement from Saprin keep me thinking for a long time about the promotion problems.

Can we asked our opponent to promote to piece that he/she has first touch, even though that piece is outside of the board. Is touch move rule applicable to piece outside of the board?

The Investigatation

FIDE Rules of Chess mentioned the following:

"When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move on the same square for a new queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. The player’s choice is not restricted to pieces that have been captured previously. This exchange of a pawn for another piece is called ‘promotion’ and the effect of the new piece is immediate. "

"...promotes a pawn, the choice of the piece is finalised, when the piece has touched the square of promotion. "

"...in the case of the promotion of a pawn, when the pawn has been removed from the chessboard and the player's hand has released the new piece after placing it on the promotion square. If the player has released from his hand the pawn that has reached the promotion square, the move is not yet made, but the player no longer has the right to play the pawn to another square."

The Verdict

Sorry Saprin.

Since promotion only count AFTER the new piece touch the promotion square, in my humble opinion we cannot force the opponent to promote to piece he/she first touch outside the board. We, however, can only force the promotion of pawn to piece that has touch the promotion square.

I am ofcourse, open to other opinions!