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Dummy Pawn

Under the 1862 British Chess Association rule, it was legal for a pawn to remain thus on reaching the 8th rank, and hence immobile for the rest of the game. This was always controversial, but lingered on until about 1903. During this period a number of compositions depended upon this rule.

Under this rule, the pawn does not promote or change state on reaching the 8th rank, and becomes immobile. We refer to it as a Dummy Pawn but it is not a fairy piece. If somehow it gets shifted off the 8th rank (e.g. Circe capture) then it can start to move forwards again.

Not be confused with Dummy, which is simply a fairy piece.

Although PDB classifies these with the jokes for indexing purposes, it would be unfair to regard them as jokes. The parameter use 'joke:not!" gives the best of both worlds. It would also be unreasonable to class them as fairy, since in their time, they were whimsical but orthodox. Problems need to be assessed in their historical context - and also in other periods earlier of later if that is more favourable to them.

Compositionally, this ultra-underpromotion is potentially very fruitful.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess)#1862_British_Chess_Association_rule
https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/21212/when-if-ever-was-it-a-rule-that-pawn-promotion-was-optional