Underpromotion

The word is an English compound built on “promotion” meaning promoting to less than the maximum — to knight, rook, or bishop instead of a queen. The idea entered chess literature through composed studies well before it became common in play: the first underpromotion studies were published by Ignazio Calvi in Le Palamède in April 1836, in the first issue of the world's first chess periodical, and the Saavedra position of 1895 caused a sensation over precisely this idea. Edward Winter's survey documents early practical instances, including a game of about 1880 by Alphonse Goetz and a February 1890 game printed in the Albany Evening Journal. Tim Krabbé's survey adds still earlier games — A. Barbe's 1861 “Mate in 3” and a Von Guretzky Cornitz–Neumann game from Berlin 1863 — and records Alain White's remark in The Theory of Pawn Promotion (1912) that he had “never heard of a game where victory was won by a promotion to Rook or Bishop.”

First documented: 1836 — Ignazio Calvi's underpromotion studies in Le Palamède, April 1836