Average row where pawns are captured
The main line uses a normalized advance rank: 2 means near the pawn's starting row, 8 means the promotion row. This makes White and Black pawn captures comparable.
Elo+Chess Research Gallery
Pawn Capture and Promotion Outcomes
Lichess target-B move-state sample by game type and Elo bucket. The charts focus on where pawns are captured, how often promoted pieces are immediately captured, and how often those captured promotions produce no net material gain after the promotion-square exchange.
CSV outputs: pawn_capture_rank_summary.csv ยท promotion_capture_summary.csv
Dataset summary
| Game type | Pawn captures | Avg captured-pawn advance rank | Promotions | Promoted piece captured next ply | No net gain after captured promotion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10min Rapid | 5,273,075 | 3.84 | 140,459 | 20.8% | 6.1% |
| 3min Blitz | 8,615,645 | 4.04 | 211,544 | 22.0% | 6.2% |
| 1min Bullet | 9,225,635 | 4.00 | 212,777 | 18.0% | 6.0% |
Metric definitions
- Average captured-pawn advance rank: capture square normalized from the pawn owner's perspective. White pawns use board rank directly; Black pawns use
9 - board rank. Rank 2 is near the starting row, rank 8 is the promotion row. - Promoted piece captured next ply: the move immediately after promotion is an opponent capture onto the promotion square.
- No net material gain: among immediate captured promotions, compare the promoting side's material delta before promotion to the material delta after the contiguous capture exchange on the promotion square, checked up to eight plies.
- Elo bucket: uses the capturing/promoting player's move-state Elo, rounded to the nearest 100.
Average move where pawns are captured
Average player move number where a pawn is captured, from the capturing player's move count. Later values mean pawn captures are happening deeper into the game.
Promoted pieces captured on the next ply
Share of promotions where the opponent immediately captures the newly promoted piece on the very next ply.
Captured promotions with no net material gain
Share of all promotions where the promoted piece is immediately captured and, after the exchange sequence on the promotion square, the promoting side is no better materially than before the promotion.
No net gain among captured promotions
Same no-net-gain test, but denominator is only promotions where the promoted piece was captured immediately.
