en passent

When I started playing chess again last year after a near 20 year break, I completely forgot about it too! I blame it from when I was a kid at school chess club, myself and opponent nearly always agreed not to use it (only because we didn't know what it was), and if they did use it to their advantage I would have a mard and start crying.

Finally found out what it was last August, and have now stopped crying about it

Can you tell me how to use en passent

If you have a pawn on the fifth rank and your opponent pushes his pawn two squares forward from his second rank to avoid a direct attack from your pawn you can capture as if he had pushed it to attack your pawn. For example if your pawn is on d5 and his pawn on e7 is pushed to e5 you can capture it as if he pushed it to e6. Or say you as black had a pawn on g4 and opponent pushes his h2 pawn to  h4 you can capture it as if he pushed it to h3. Perhaps if you google it up you'll see diagrams to help you.

I normally think of it if it's my pawn move and my opponent could capture e.p. I often seem to miss it when I'm the one who could capture e.p. It hasn't happened a lot in my games, but on Tactics Trainer sometimes the e.p. capture is the solution and I completely miss it ...

Knowing the history of the move helps to understand it.  At one time pawns could only move one square forward at a time.  It was found that the game was sped  up considerably if pawns were allowed to move two squares forward on their first move.  Allowing a pawn to move two squares didn't fundamentally change the game except for one situation.  If you had a pawn on your 5th rank blocking the advance of an enemy pawn, that pawn could now by pass your blocking pawn by moving two squares.  To remedy this the en passant rule was created so that you could capture the pawn as if it had only moved one square instead of two.

En passant is often the last piece movement that a beginner will learn.  I have a very vivid memory from my 7th grade after-school chess club (this was over 40 years ago!!) where I was one of the top players.  During a match session, the director came over to me and asked if I was familiar with the e.p. rule.  I said "sure".  My friend Alan (our top player) then came over to me, and said "tell this guy that it's is a legal move."  Apparently he had just played it against his opponent who was objecting loudly.  "No it is NOT legal......here are the rules RIGHT HERE!!"  He then held up a one-page index card (like you would find in one of those cardboard-box chess and checker sets with red and black squares) that said "The rules of chess."  I laughed (hopefully just to myself) as Alan said in a very frustrated tone "Not in the little rules......." (leaving off "you idiot").  I assured everyone that it was legal (and come to think of it, I doubt that the math teacher/chess-club director really had a clue), and their game went on, though I'm sure under protest.  That's learning en passant the hard way...

usually I will not use en passant when I am playing someone who obviously doesn't know what it is.  I probably won't have trouble beating people who don't even know that, so it is trifling to do so

I think it's funny when you see threads on this board claiming that someone cheated because they used en passant.

It was deffo one of those rules that sounds more complicated than it actually is, probably why I was so put off from using it, or allowing it to be used, when I was a young'un.

 if one of your pawns passes a square threatened by one of your pawns, you can take it by putting your pawn on the square that was threatened then remove his pawn, this can only happen once.

And of course it has to happen the very next move or you lose the option to use it.  You can't move a couple other pieces and then go back and capture a pawn en passant.

Cheating by following the rules?  I don't understand your opinion.

Castling is more of a scam than cheating.

The way the knight moves is just plain corrupt though. Straighten that one out people.

Don't get me started on promotion....

haha - hilarious thread.. for chess geeks? Now I feel sad again :-(

It is the obligation for anyone who teaches the rules of chess to teach all of the rules. I don't understand why en passant gets neglected but it happens way more often than it should.

This nails it.  Don't get frustrated with your opponent, get frustrated with your teacher. 

I recently was observing a high school tournament and saw a kid lose because he didn't know the en passant rule. I said to the guy standing next to me, "Whoever taught that kid chess did him a disservice." Embarrassed he replied, "I thought he knew it!" Turns out he was his coach.

The box top of the chess set I learned from as a kid didn't include the rules for en pessant, castling, or pawn promotion. All it had was the basic moves of the pieces. I remember playing another kid at camp when I was around 7 years old, and he pushed a pawn all the way to promote it, and I thought he was cheating. I blame Milton Bradley, since they're the ones who made the chess set and box top instructions that I learned from.