Well, perhaps I took a liberty or two with my paraphrase of the FIDE rule.
But that liberty may be more apparent than real.
Remember, FIDE explicitly allows a promotion to be carried out by first placing the queen on the eighth rank, then removing the pawn from the seventh rank, without ever actually moving the pawn from the seventh to the eighth. (This clarification is recent, prompted no doubt by a couple of stupid arbiters who penalized players for promoting in this manner.)
So, a player who grabs a queen from off the board, and places it on a legal promotion square, has IMO begun a legal promotion maneuver, and has thus placed himself in the situation described in 4.4(d) (quoted above).
If, by contrast, the player grabs a queen from off the board and places it on a square where no promotion is legal, then neither 4.4(d) nor my paraphrase would burden the player with any obligation whatever, regarding the touched (and placed) queen.
So the original and the paraphrase would seem to be equivalent after all.
IMHO the rule ought to be touch move. In this specific case touching a piece off the board indicates INTENT, as you need
to touch a piece off the board to promote.
I know the rules, but here I do not understand the logic. I am
not being difficult; I’m trying to understand
Surely you’ve seen players in an endgame when they are short of time grab a queen of their own color long before they are ready to promote. Why should they be forced to promote to a queen if by the time they get to the promotion it appears unwise?
Only pieces actually on the board are part of the game. Pieces off the board should not again become part of the game unless and until they go back on the board as part of a legal pawn promotion.
Or in another scenario, let’s say you have your pieces off the board in a piled heap rather than placed neatly. Should it be touch move if the first piece grabbed is just the one on top, but not the intended piece?
There are just way too many scenarios such as kids (and sometimes adults) playing with pieces off the board, etc, to even begin to consider what is and isn’t touch move. The simplest course of action is also the best course. Let the board stand for itself. Only what happens on the board matters.
You are assuming that the reason for the touch move rule is that, by touching a piece, the player has indicated the intent to move it. The real reason is that if a player is allowed to touch piece after piece before deciding which piece to move, it becomes very difficult to be sure that he has not actually moved more than one of the pieces he touched.
Almost every player would be deeply annoyed by an opponent who touches a piece to begin a move but then decides to move a different piece instead.
Rather than relying on a vague and unspecific prohibition against annoying behavior, the rulemakers long ago decided to establish a specific rule defining the moment at which a player is committed to moving a specific piece.
Should it be the moment when a player reaches for the piece? Such a rule would no doubt need to spell out the distance between piece and approaching hand that would constitute “reaching for”. 2 cm? 1 cm? 0.5 cm? Obviously this would be arbitrary, vague, and almost impossible to determine in any given case.
Or, should it be the moment when the hand has moved the piece more than a specified distance from its departure square? Same problem – arbitrary, vague, not deterministic.
So, the rulemakers settled on the instant at which the hand touches the piece as the defining moment. This is reasonable, specific, and deterministic.
Now consider promotion. What should be the definition of the moment at which a player is committed to promote to a specific piece? Should it be the instant the hand touches the (off-the-board) piece? This definition seems far too strong. Many players fiddle with one or more captured pieces all the time, or grab the queen several moves in advance so they will be ready.
Or, should it be the instant the hand releases the new piece on the promotion square? This seems too weak. It would be similar to allowing a player to take back a (non-promoting) move as long he has not yet released the piece on its new square.
In my opinion, FIDE did it exactly right. A player is committed to promoting to a specific piece at the instant he has caused the piece to touch a square on which it can legally be promoted. Reasonable, specific, deterministic, AND parallel (as nearly as possible) to the corresponding rule for a non-promoting move.
I don’t see the FIDE rule here as better or worse than the US Chess rule, just different. However, one point that both have in common is that a piece must be in contact with the board for it to count as an active piece. If you let a piece off the board become an active piece then you are opening a whole can of worms that it would be best to leave alone.
IMHO I believe Mr. Smythe’s paraphrasing of the FIDE rule is not correct. It is possible for the same pawn to promote to multiple legal squares and just because you let the queen touch one of those squares does not mean you have to promote the pawn to a queen on that square. Once you actually promote the pawn by releasing it on the promotion square then you must promote to whatever piece you let touch that particular square.
I disagree with your disagreement. The FIDE rule, as quoted above, says:
(Emphasis mine.)
The rule says “the square of promotion”, not “a square on which a promotion is possible”.
OTOH, I suspect that whoever wrote the rule did not think of this possibility, and that the wording could be improved.
OT3H, it borders on the absurd to believe that the writer of the rule intended it to mean that, if you cause a piece off the board to touch any square on the board where a promotion is possible, you are stuck with that choice of piece, but not with that choice of square, whereas if you cause a piece off the board to touch any square where a promotion is not possible, you are not stuck with anything.