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En passant (from French: "in passing") is a move in the board game
Board game

File:Game_of_life_board.jpgA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board" . As do other form of entertainment, board games can represent nearly any subject....
 of chess
Chess

Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two Player . Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from History of chess and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older...
.






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Chess Pld44
Chess Pdl44


En passant (from French: "in passing") is a move in the board game
Board game

File:Game_of_life_board.jpgA board game is a game in which counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across a "board" . As do other form of entertainment, board games can represent nearly any subject....
 of chess
Chess

Chess is a recreational and competitive game played between two Player . Sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish it from History of chess and other chess variants, the current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older...
. En passant is a special capture made immediately after a player moves a pawn
Pawn (chess)

The pawn is the weakest and most numerous chess piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen....
 two squares forward from its starting position, and an opposing pawn could have captured it as 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 taking it "as it passes" through the first square; 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. The En passant capture 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
Draw (chess)

In chess, a draw is one of the possible outcomes of a game, the others being a win for White and a win for Black . Traditionally, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser....
 by threefold repetition
Threefold repetition

In chess and some other abstract strategy games, the threefold repetition rule states that a player can claim a draw if the same position occurs three times, or will occur after their next move, with the same player to move....
, two positions whose pieces are all on the same squares, with the same player to move, are considered different if there was an opportunity to make an en passant capture in the first position, because that opportunity by definition no longer exists the second time the same configuration of pieces occurs.

In either algebraic
Algebraic chess notation

Algebraic chess notation is used to record and describe the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers....
 or descriptive chess notation
Descriptive chess notation

Descriptive chess notation, or just descriptive notation is a chess notation for recording chess games, and at one time was the most popular notation in Britain and America for doing so....
, 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.

Illustration

 Example of en passant
   


Example in opening


In this line from the Petrov Defence, White can capture the pawn on d5 en passant on his sixth move.
  • 1. e4 e5
  • 2. Nf3 Nf6
  • 3. d4 exd4
  • 4. e5 Ne4
  • 5. Qxd4 d5 (diagram)
  • 6. exd6 .


Example from game


In this game between Gunnar Gundersen and A. H. Faul, Black has just moved his pawn from f7 to f5. The white pawn on e5 could capture the f-pawn en passant, but White had a different idea:
  • 13. h5+ Kh6
  • 14. Nxe6+ g5
  • 15. hxg6 e.p. #
Capturing the g-pawn en passant resulted in checkmate
Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured....
.

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
Castling

Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rook of the same color. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed....
, and the unlimited range for queen
Queen (chess)

The queen is the most powerful chess piece in the game of chess. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of their first rank next to their King ....
s and bishop
Bishop (chess)

A bishop is a Chess piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's Knight and the King , the other between the queen's knight and the Queen ....
s. Because of their separation from European chess prior to that period, the Asian chess variant
Chess variant

A chess variant is a game derived from, related to or similar to chess in at least one respect. The difference from chess can include one or more of the following:...
s 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 pawns on the player's fifth rank the opportunity to capture a pawn on an adjacent file which advances two squares from its starting square.

See also

  • Rules of chess
    Rules of chess

    The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, the modern rules first took form in Italy during the 16th century....
  • Pawn (chess)
    Pawn (chess)

    The pawn is the weakest and most numerous chess piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen....