- This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.
En passant (from French: "in [the pawn's] passing") is a special move in the board game of chess. En passant is a capture made immediately after 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.
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Illustration
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Black to move
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White to move
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Black to move
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Historical context
Historically, allowing en passant is one of the last 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 newly-added two-square first move for pawns from allowing them to evade capture by an enemy pawn. 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.
See also
References
- Hooper, David & Whyld, Kenneth (1992), The Oxford Companion to Chess (second ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-866164-9
External links
- FIDE rules (En Passant is rule 3.7, part d)
