Pawn Promotion On ChessUp

ChessUp allows the user to promote and even underpromote a pawn. Every ChessUp comes with an extra queen for promotion.

How Does Promotion Work with ChessUp?

When a players pawn reaches the back rank of the opposing side that player can choose to promote to a Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight. Follow the steps below to correctly promote a pawn.

Stand Alone Mode (no app)

1. Move the pawn to the back rank.
2. The square under the pawn will turn purple indicating action by the user is required.
3. The queen piece icon will light up near the ChessUp logo. It will be blue if white is promoting and green if black is promoting.
4. Press the gear icon (blue for white and green for black) to cycle through the promotion options. You will see each piece icon light up indicating the selection option*. 
5. When the icon of the piece you wish to select it lit up remove the pawn.
6. The promoting square will light up blue for white and green for black.
7. Replace the pawn with the piece selected (if promoting to a queen and your extra queen is already in use you can use any piece. The legal moves will still illuminate a queens move options).
8. The promoting square and the piece icon will blink indicated the selection was made.
9. Promotion is complete and the game can continue.

Playing with the app

Promotion with the app can be done in two ways. You can make promotion selection on the board just like stand alone mode (see above) or you can make the selection on the app.

1. Move the pawn to the back rank.
2. The square under the pawn will turn purple indicating action by the user is required.
3. The queen piece icon (see playing with assistance) will light up near the ChessUp logo. It will be blue if white is promoting and green if black is promoting.
4. The app will also pop up your promotion options.
5. Make your selection by pressing the button on the screen*.
6. The selected piece icon will light up on the board.
7. Remove the pawn and the promoting square will light up blue for white and green for black.
8. Replace the pawn with the piece selected (if promoting to a queen and your extra queen is already in use you can use any piece. The legal moves will still illuminate a queens move options).
9. The promoting square and the piece icon will blink indicated the selection was made.
10. Promotion is complete and the game can continue.

Auto-Queen

Auto-queening is very simple process with ChessUp since the default promotion option a queen.

1. Move the pawn to the back rank.
2. The square under the pawn will turn purple indicating action by the user is required.
3. The queen piece icon (see playing with assistance) will light up near the ChessUp logo. It will be blue if white is promoting and green if black is promoting.
4. Remove the pawn and promoting square will light up blue for white and green for black*.
5. Replace the pawn with the extra queen (if your extra queen is already in use you can use any piece. The legal moves will still illuminate a queens move options).
6. The promoting square and the piece icon will blink indicated the selection was made.
7. Promotion is complete and the game can continue.

Playing with Assistance

When playing with assistance the computer will recommend the best promotion piece (app only). This is almost always a queen, but there are circumstances when promoting to a queen can automatically trigger a stalemate. In this case another piece might be the best move. The way the recommended promotion is indicated to the user is by lighting up the piece icon on the board. When the pawn is moved to the back rank the recommended piece icon will turn on. When playing without assistance the queen icon will come on when the pawn is moved to the bank rank even if the queen isn't the best move. So pay attention to that icon when using assistance.

*One last note: If after the user moves the pawn to the back rank and no action is performed within 10 seconds the promotion will automatically conclude and the piece icon that was lit up will be the option selected. This is to safe guard against the board being stuck in a state without the user understanding why.