How often do pawns promote?
12.6% of games have a pawn promotion.
every level and clock · 3.1B games
Who wins after promoting first?
The win rate of the side that promoted first, at every level and clock.
Pawn promotions by rating
The share of games with a promotion at each rating.
Pawn promotions by time control
| Clock | With a promotion | Games | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11.6% | 99.7% | 20,078,067 | |
| 11.7% | 98.6% | 1,147,692,850 | |
| 13.1% | 97.1% | 1,474,249,445 | |
| 13.4% | 96.4% | 466,487,194 | |
| 13.5% | 95.9% | 17,544,751 |
Choose a clock to read the page at it.
Methodology
12.6% of games have a pawn promotion. Scope: every level and clock. Sample: 3,126,052,307 analyzed games. Rated Lichess games played September 2023 to August 2026. TrueElo analysis of Lichess data. The share counts games with any promotion, rather than the number of pawns promoted or the promoting side’s win rate.
When citing manually, include the source URL and your access date.
https://trueelo.app/stats/promotionsHow the figures are made
- How to read this page
- A promotion is a pawn reaching the far rank and becoming another piece, almost always a queen; a knight, rook or bishop instead is rare. Who promoted first is the side whose pawn reached the far rank first.
- Whose games these are
- 3B+ rated games played on Lichess (2023-09 to 2026-08). The games are Lichess’s and free for anyone to use. What is ours is the reading of them. Last rebuilt September 2026.
- Which games we count
- Rated games only — nothing casual.
- Both players within 200 rating points of each other. A mismatch tells you about the gap, not about the opening.
- At least 2 moves played.
- A game is filed under White’s rating.
- Why every number comes with a range
- A number off a few hundred games is a guess. The same number off millions is a fact. The range is what tells them apart, and it is what the lists rank on — so an opening cannot reach the top on a lucky run of forty games. The more games behind a figure, the narrower its range.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often do chess games have pawn promotions?
12.6% of Lichess games have at least one pawn promotion, and of those 97.5% are to a queen, 0.7% to a knight, 1.5% to a rook and 0.3% to a bishop. Underpromotion is rare at only 2.5% of promotions.
When should you promote to something other than a queen?
Rook is the most common underpromotion, at 1.5% of promotions, and Bishop the rarest, at 0.30%. Promote to a knight when its fork or check does more than a queen would, and to a rook or bishop when a queen would stalemate.
Does the side that promotes first usually win?
When White promotes first, White wins 75.7% of those games. When Black promotes first, Black wins 75.5%. Either way, promoting first goes with winning more often than not.
At what move do promotions typically happen?
Promotions happen around move 45.9 on average in Lichess games.
Why is queen promotion so dominant?
Queens are 97.5% of promotions because the queen is the strongest piece, and the other 2.5% are knights 0.7%, rooks 1.5% and bishops 0.3%. A queen is almost always right, and underpromoting needs a concrete tactical reason.
How important is pawn promotion strategy?
It comes up in 12.6% of Lichess games. When it does, the side that promotes first usually wins: White wins 75.7% of the games where White promotes first, and Black 75.5% of those where Black does.