Is en passant optional?

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Avatar of DanWilliams907

So I've been looking though Forums about chess on reddit and other places and people were saying you MUST take en passant but I've only been playing chess for 3 years online only  and I always thought en passant was optional so if people could shed light on this for me that work be great 

Avatar of Martin_Stahl
danwilliams907 wrote:

So I've been looking though Forums about chess on reddit and other places and people were saying you MUST take en passant but I've only been playing chess for 3 years online only  and I always thought en passant was optional so if people could shed light on this for me that work be great 

 

It's optional, unless it's the only legal move.