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Rules of Chess: En passant capture FAQ. Answers to some questions about the en passant capture rule.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Reinhard Scharnagl wrote on Thu, Jan 31, 2008 08:01 AM UTC:
The question: 'Can other pieces except pawns capture en passant?' has been negated. But that is not quite exact. I will explain this: There had been a time in ancient chess, where pieces had been allowed to make only one single step. Thus chess had been a very slow game. Later in Italy chess has been modernized: the sliding of some pieces has been invented, an initial double step of pawns was introduced, and castlings were designed. But those moves have not been regarded each to be a continuous move, instead they had been interpreted as a serie of independent moves, by which chess could be sped up. This point of view leads by exception of the sliding moves (to avoid trouble when those pieces do capturings themselves) to the situation, that an opponent was allowed to answer by capturing also to any of the intermediately used target fields. Now only pawns are allowed to answer that way on pawns double step moves. And so it is clear, why that e.p move is merely allowed in the intermediate following move. But looking at castling moves you see, that a king still is not allowed to pass any square, where he would be in chess. That is nothing else, than that every enemy piece would be allowed to capture him via e.p..