

Top 8 chess en passant questions answered with en passant examples In this post, I’m going to answer the top 8 questions about en passant and give you an example of how a chess en passant move was used to end a game.
En passant rule full#
I played this move once to my daughter, who was just 6 years old at that time, and her eyes became big! Lol!Ī very useful guide that can also help you is this guide about chess pawn rules.Īlthough this chess en passant move at this day of age should have been very familiar to a lot of beginners, sad to say some of us have not seen it used in full action, I mean in an actual game where en passant ended a real game.

I have surprised a lot of my friends, especially those who are still learning about chess with this move, and it's a fun move to make when the opportunity comes during a chess game.

It is one of the chess moves that I have always been looking forward to executing in every game that I play. It is also illegal to attempt an en passant capture on an enemy pawn that has not advanced two spaces in the prior move.įinally, it becomes illegal for a player to perform an en passant on an enemy pawn if they do not make the capture on the turn immediately following that pawn’s two-square advance, even if the enemy pawn has not moved in the following turn. To explain this in more detail, if the player using white pieces advances one of their pawns two spaces, putting it in danger of en passant, but the player with the black pieces chooses not to perform an en passant on their following turn, they cannot then perform an en passant with that pawn at all, even if the white pawn is still in danger of it on the following turn.Īn additional instance of an illegal en passant capture occurs if a player attempts to capture a pawn that has already moved four spaces en passant or if they attempt to capture a pawn that has only moved two spaces (one each turn) with an en passant capture.En passant is an excellent move that can catch your opponent off guard. For example, it is illegal to perform an en passant capture if the capturing pawn has advanced more than three squares. There are a few cases where making an en passant capture is illegal in chess, mostly in situations where one or more of the requirements for an en passant capture are not in place. It is important to note that, because of the specificity of these rules, an en passant capture can only take place between two pawns and cannot involve any other type of chess piece such as a knight, bishop, rook, queen, or king. In en passant, however, a pawn is able to capture another pawn that has moved into the square directly horizontal to it and does so by moving into the square directly behind the pawn it is capturing, removing the captured pawn from the board. In chess, en passant is a special type of move involving pawns, the lowest-ranking chess pieces on the board. The term “en passant” is derived from the French expression of the same spelling, which translates to “in passing” in English. This refers to the way in which a pawn is captured en passant.Įn passant is a unique chess move because it breaks the normal rule of pawns capturing other pieces. In standard chess rules, a pawn can only capture another piece when that piece is one square ahead of and directly diagonal to it, at which time the capturing pawn removes the other piece from the board and occupies its square.
