How to Capture En Passant

Guide Note: En Passant is a special move in Chess that allows a player's Pawn to capture an opposing Pawn even if it has already moved past it.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Conditions for En Passant
• Resources

• Also try: How to Play Chess

Introduction

• En Passant is a tricky move that is made by a Pawn in order to capture another pawn that has moved 2 spaces from it's initial position in order to evade capture. If an opposing Pawn moves 2 spaces ahead so that it is parallel to an oncoming Pawn, the oncoming Pawn can perform an En Passant in order to capture it. While this may seem hard to understand at first, hopefully the diagrams below will make it a little clearer. Just like castling, there are a few things that you will need to know about En Passant:

Conditions for Capturing En Passant

1. An En passant is possible only when an opposing Pawn could have been captured were it to have moved only 1 space instead of 2.
2. When one Pawn takes another by En passant, the capturing Pawn must move into the square directly behind the captured Pawn. This is the only instance in chess where a capturing piece does not move into the space occupied by the captured one.
3. An En Passant has to be done on the move directly after the opposing Pawn has made their 2 space move.

• Here is an example of how En Passant works:

• 

  En passant (Wikimedia Commons via GNU)

Resources

• Wikipedia: En Passant
• Chess Club: What Is En Passant?
• About.com: How to Capture En Passant

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