Underpromotion

I was wondering if there are any nice underpromotions out there that led to a victory.

Here is a curious game where I opted for a rook over a queen with 52. c8 = R. Interestingly, my opponent didn't take the rook. I thought he would. No complaints though, the additional rook led to an easier endgame. As you can see I had a little trouble deciding what I wanted to do with my King on the last few moves but eventually I saw the mate. Any comments or suggestions to improve my play are always gratefully recieved.

Game 4042274

Here is one.

Game 1112925

The final moves would have been Kxg7 f7=N+ Kg8 NxQ

Why would you chose a rook over a queen apart to avoid stalemate? I'm not sure I understand why you did that?

Originally posted by Arctic Jack
Why would you chose a rook over a queen apart to avoid stalemate? I'm not sure I understand why you did that?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Sometimes a knight is preferable over queen, by deliver a fork from the promotion square.

Originally posted by Arctic Jack
Yeah I understand that but why a rook over a queen unless to avoid stalemate, which he wasn't?

Very ocasionally, you need to underpromote to a rook in the endgame, as promoting to a queen will allow a stalemate tactic, whereas promoting to the rook gives the enemy king escape squares for the time being until you are ready to mate it later.

Originally posted by Drew L
I was wondering if there are any nice underpromotions out there that led to a victory.

Originally posted by Drew L
Any comments or suggestions to improve my play are always gratefully recieved.

Game 4042274

Your opponent's 46 ...Rxb3?? was a blunder.
What was wrong with 48 c8=Q ? It wins the Black rook immediately. Why wait so long to promote and allow Black's pawns to advance? And again, what was the point of the underpromotion, other than for show, or in the hope that Black would not take the new rook (he did not)? But that just trades your pawn for a new White rook instead of trading it for taking Black's rook off the board. Ahead in material, take his rook off the board and you have an elementary endgame win. Am I missing something?

I underpromoted by accident. I hit the space between the queen and the rook and it registered the rook.

Oh, OK. Good job finishing!

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Sometimes a knight is preferable over queen, by deliver a fork from the promotion square.

Here is a clever one that XanthosNZ has often quoted. Suppose it is very quoteworthy.

Game 1086815

Originally posted by lausey
Here is a clever one that XanthosNZ has often quoted. Suppose it is very quoteworthy.

Game 1086815