Specials Rules(Pawn Promotion,En Passant,Casting)
Ηi!
How are you?
I hope you are fine!
Are you ready for a lesson?
Let's start!
As the blog title says, we will learn about some important rules! The special rules. Every chess player should know them!
Pawn Promotion
When a pawn reaches the opposite side of the board—the 8th rank for White and the 1st rank for Black—a special rule applies.The pawn is a piece with special and strange rules for a beginner. For example, in the starting position, it can move two squares forward and capture diagonally. And there is one more strange rule—the pawn promotion!When a White pawn reaches the 8th rank and a Black pawn reaches the 1st rank (the last rank for both colors), it can promote to a queen (this is the most common promotion because the queen is the most powerful piece), rook, bishop, or knight! Only pawns can promote to stronger pieces. Also, the pawn CAN'T promote to a king or another pawn (of course!) because there is only one king in chess, and you need to checkmate him to win.When a pawn promotes to a queen, we call that queening, and when a pawn promotes to a rook, bishop, or knight, we call that underpromotion.
Look carefully at the next diagram!
You can also promote your pawn to a piece you already have. It doesn't matter if you have a queen and want to promote another pawn to a queen. According to this rule, if a player promotes all their pawns to the same piece, they can have nine queens, ten rooks, ten bishops, or ten knights! But this will almost never happen (okay, maybe it can, but what would your opponent be doing? 😂).
En Passant
En passant is a special pawn capture in chess! It is an important rule, so make sure you learn it!
First of all, what does ‘en passant’ even mean? En passant comes from French and means “in passing.”
When a pawn moves two squares forward (from its starting position) and lands directly beside an opponent’s pawn, the opponent can capture it using the en passant rule. Just look at the next diagram:
- To capture en passant, White’s pawn must be on the 5th rank and Black’s on the 4th, or else en passant isn’t allowed.
- The opponent’s pawn must move two squares forward to be captured by en passant.
- To capture en passant, the capturing pawn moves one square diagonally to the file where the opponent’s pawn was
- If a pawn moves one square forward instead of two, en passant isn’t allowed.
Castling
Castling is the only move in chess where two pieces move at the same time. The king moves two squares to the right or left, and then the rook jumps over the king and lands beside it. Castling is important because the rook enters the battle more easily, and the king is protected by a wall of pawns.
There are two types of castling:
- Kingside castling (short castle)
- Queenside castling (long castle)
Let's talk first about kingside castling.
Puzzles
I hope you enjoyed the lesson!
