EN PASSANT

'''En passant''' ''(from French: "in [the pawn's] passing")'' is a maneuver in the board game of chess. ''En passant'' is possible when a player moves a pawn two squares forward from its starting position, and an opposing pawn could have captured it if it had only moved one square forward. In this situation, the opposing pawn may, on the immediately subsequent move, capture the pawn as if it had only moved one square forward; the resulting position would then be the same as if the pawn had only moved one square forward and the opposing pawn had captured normally. ''En passant'' must be done on the very next turn, or the right to do so is lost.
Such a move is the only occasion in chess in which a piece captures but does not move to the square of the captured piece. When claiming a draw by threefold repetition, two positions whose pieces are all on the same squares, with the same player to move, are considered different if there is the opportunity to make an ''en passant'' capture in one position but not the other.
In either algebraic or descriptive chess notation, ''en passant'' captures are sometimes denoted by "e.p." or similar, but such notation is not required. In algebraic notation, the move is written as if the captured pawn just advanced only one square, ''e.g'', exf6 (or exf6 e.p.) in the illustration below.

Contents

Illustration

Historical context

See also

References

External links

Illustration

Example of ''en passant''

Historical context

Historically, allowing ''en passant'' is one of the last series of major rule changes in European chess that occurred in the 14th to 15th century, together with the introduction of the two-square first move for pawns, castling, and the unlimited range for queens and bishops. Because of their separation from European chess prior to that period, the Asian chess variants do not feature any of these moves.
The motivation for ''en passant'' was to prevent the two-square first move for pawns from having any impact on the game other than speeding up the opening phase. Specifically, it should still allow opposing pawns on the player's fourth rank the opportunity to capture a pawn on an adjacent file which advances from its starting square.
The name ''en passant'' refers to the conceit that a pawn, which ordinarily moves only one square at a time, cannot nominally move immediately to a square two rows ahead, and thus can be considered to pass through the first square in the process of making a two square first move. It is therefore deemed vulnerable to being captured ''in passing'' through the first square while making a two square first move. The same principle motivates the rule that one cannot castle through check. Since a king ordinarily moves only one square at a time, he nominally cannot move two squares at once, and thus renders himself in check in passing through the first square while castling. Since by the conventions of chess, a king is not allowed to put himself into check, castling through check is not allowed.

See also

★ Rules of chess

References

★

External links

★ FIDE rules (En Passant is rule 3.7, part d)