Someone once took my Rook en passant. I was about eleven at the time, quite new to chess, and I'd not heard of en passant before. My opponent, also about eleven, explained: "there's some rule called 'en passant' which means that pawns can sometimes capture funny. I think it means I can take your Rook here".
I can picture either Calvin or Hobbes explaining that to the other . . .
Even into the 19th Century, the convention that White moves first was not universal. It was very typical in matches for the players not to switch pieces, but keep their color, and just alternate moving first. So there were published games where Black moved first!
I'm learning a lot from reading these forums, because I did not know this. I'm sure glad this was changed.
Yeah. Baseball finally got rid of all those wimps who couldn't even throw the ball as far as home plate. Now the wimps bowl cricket, where they're allowed to run toward the batter before they release the ball and it's legal to have it bounce en route.
And nobody can ever tell when the game is over, so sometimes they have to keep playing for days even if the beer has run out.
Wait a minute ... ale is MUCH better than beer!
Good lord, that's what this was about? A full page ad accusing and naming someone as a cheater, and branding chess.com as being soft on cheaters, and it all arose from not even knowing the rules of the game?