en passent?

I've known the rules of chess since i was a kid, thou i havnt really been takin chess seriously until recently. I have been and seen so many games, but recently i discovered a rule in chess that i havent read or seen.

I was learning from the game @chessmaster:grand,master edition' and the tutor explained a rule called 'en passent'. Where if a pawn(white) is on the 5th rank(lets say a5) and black plays a pawn move where he moves 2 moves(placing in on the 5th rank next to the white pawn on b5) the white pawn can attack and take the black pawn by moving to b6, although he dosnt not even land on the square black moved to.

is this rule a oppitional rule that players can choose, or is it an offical rule in all games , but is rarly seen, because i have never seen or heard of this before.

Please comment back, thanks a lot

Matthew

its a rule. always. no choice about it :)

http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-rules--basics

Yea it's as much of a rule as 'castling', and always has been.

I realise its a rule, but how come i hav'nt ever seen it been played or even heard of it.

ive watched, studied and played aggainst experianced players, but not once have i seen it been played.

So has any one had experoance with this move against people who havt known about it, because it must of caused some confuisin lol.

Im glad i learnt about it throu a tutor and not in a a game(if u get wot i mean)

So is it rare to see

Matthew

it might be what you consider "experienced" is more household players, not tournament players.

also, you may just have never noticed :) it is ALWAYS a rule for serious chess players. i would say it is played in ~5% of chess games.

Originally the pawns could only move one square forward on their first move, this was later changed so the the pawn could move 2 squares on its first move.  So at the same time the en passant move was introduced so that the opponent would not miss the opportunity to capture just because the pawn had advanced 2 squares instead of one.  So the rule allows the capturer to take as if the pawn had only moved one square.

Well, it's not (as is believed by some) an obligation to take a pawn en passant when the rule allows it. But one cannot take the rule off the table.

MM78 thank you very much for the information, i found that quite intresting.

Thank all very much for comments i found them very helpful

Thank you

Matthew