Statistically speaking, which white and black pawns are most likely to be queened?
2 Answers
I have some partial statistics for the question, from the Million Base 1.74 database, a collection of 1742057 games. 77218 of these games (4.4%) feature at least one promotion.
I counted 49970 promotions for white (54% of all promotions) and 42519 for black (46%). Here are the destination square statistics (meaning there is no track of the actual initial pawn square, because that statistic is a lot more difficult to gather), for all games and depending on the type of castling:
White a8 b8 c8 d8 e8 f8 g8 h8
all 15.8% 14.2% 13.8% 14.8% 11.5% 11.3% 8.7% 9.8%
with O-O 15.8% 14.3% 13.9% 15.9% 11.8% 11.2% 8.1% 9.1%
with O-O-O 17.1% 14.7% 14.2% 10.7% 9.9% 11.7% 10.8% 11.0%
Black a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 f1 g1 h1
all 16.0% 14.7% 14.4% 12.6% 11.8% 11.3% 9.0% 10.1%
with O-O 15.9% 14.8% 14.3% 12.9% 11.9% 11.3% 8.7% 10.0%
with O-O-O 13.5% 10.7% 10.9% 9.7% 12.4% 14.0% 14.0% 14.8%
A few observations:
- queenside promotions seem significantly more common than kingside promotions
- column statistics are quite consistent between black and white (except maybe when black castles long)
- castling long increases the odds of a promotion happening kingside
This is almost impossible to answer, but I would say the pawns that are on the a
and h
file or more likely to promote, especially if protected by another pawn and rook. I would say this increases if the king has already castled on the opposite side of the a
or h
file.
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By impossible do you mean it's a question for which there's unlikely an existing answer, or that it is truly impossible to say?– blundersMay 14, 2012 at 18:48
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1More like an existing answer. It would probably be hard to find statistics out there on which pawns are most likely to promote. I think an answer would most likely just be a guess. I think it is safe to say though that the pawns that have the most potential to queen are the ones on the opposite side of a castled king, whether this be the a or h pawn, depends on what side the king castled. Also remember, that just because a pawn promotes on from the a file does not mean it started of there, it could started off at the c file for example.– xaisoftMay 14, 2012 at 18:54