I know that not everyone applies a specific value to pieces in the game, and that certain pieces (ie. bishops) are more or less valuable depending on what stage of the game you are in. That being said, I was wondering what people considered the value of queened pawns. Specifically, if you already had a queen on the board, would sacrifice your queened pawn for a rook? A bishop? A knight? How about if you didn't have a queen on the board? The reason I ask is that it's a fairly common scenario to have a rook protecting the file where a pawn is advancing, and another rook further down the rank protecting the square where the pawn will queen. So if the pawn is promoted, the protecting rook takes the pawn, but is subsequently taken by the opposing player's rook. So if you compare the state of the game afterward all of the captures, the initial player who promoted the pawn is now up a rook. However, they're also down a pawn, and the threat of promotion can be very powerful. Not to mention the fact that with some additional maneuvering, it might be possible to keep the queen that resulted from promotion, and therefore be up a queen rather than a rook.
Just wanted to get people's feelings on this.
Thanks,
-mike
If there is not much material on the board and I can get up a rook I'll do it in a heartbeat! Especially if they would have only pawns on the board and I would have pawns and a rook. I guess I value a queened pawn as a pawn itself and would not hesitate to trade it for a piece if the resulting position and material advantage would give me an easy endgame. 🙂
Originally posted by ChessNutthat's exactly right. In the endgame, I think the choice is simple. Why waste time trying to get a queen advantage when a rook advantage leads to sure victory w/o wasting time. It becomes a little more complicated earlier in the game when there is still a lot of material on the board. You need to consider how likely it is that you can promote a pawn for a better exchange and whether or not your opponent might be able to simply block your promotion w/ a weak bishop or something. If you do decide to promote for the exchange of the pawn for a minor piece, it may not be assured that you can carry that material advantage to a victory.
If there is not much material on the board and I can get up a rook I'll do it in a heartbeat! Especially if they would have only pawns on the board and I would have pawns and a rook. I guess I value a queened pawn as a pawn itself and would not hesitate to trade it for a piece if the resulting position and material advantage would give me an easy endgame. 🙂