Chess Basics: En Passant

In this lesson, we’ll go over en passant, a special capturing move pawns can make.

What is En Passant?

En passant, French for “in passing,” is a move that allows a pawn to capture an opposing pawn that has moved for the first time and landed on the square beside it. In the example below, White is able to capture Black’s e-pawn after it moves to the e5 square:

This concept originated in the Middle Ages after the rules of chess were altered to speed up the pace of the game. Originally, pawns were only able to move one square at a time, even on their first turn; following the rule change, pawns were permitted to move up to two squares on their first turn instead. 

To stop pawns from easily evading capture by taking advantage of this rule, en passant was introduced to allow other pawns to capture the pawns that move beside them as if they had only moved one square instead of two.

Capturing En Passant

This unusual move has a few special rules to remember: 

• the pawn being captured must have been attempting to exercise it's privilege to move two squares on it's first turn (it will be moving to the 4th rank for White or the 5th rank for Black)
• the pawn making the en-passant capture must have already advanced three ranks from its starting position (it must already be on the same rank that the enemy pawn is trying to move to)
• the player making the en passant capture must do so immediately,  otherwise they forfeit their right to make the capture
• making an en passant capture is NOT required; the player with the option to capture may simply decide to allow the pawn to pass by