Chess rules
En Passant: The Special Pawn Capture
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En passant (French for “in passing”) lets a pawn capture an enemy pawn that has just advanced two squares, landing as if that pawn had moved only one. It is a real, official rule — but it can only be played on the very next move, or the right is lost forever.
The three conditions
En passant is allowed only when all three of these are true at once. Miss the window and you can never claim it later.
- The enemy pawn just moved two squares forward from its starting rank.
- It landed directly beside your pawn (on the same rank, an adjacent file).
- You capture immediately, on your very next move — the chance vanishes if you play anything else.
Try it yourself
Black has just played …d7–d5, sliding the pawn past your e5 pawn. Capture en passant: your pawn takes on d6 — the empty square the black pawn skipped over — and the black pawn is removed. It feels strange because you land on an empty square and capture a pawn that wasn’t there. That is exactly what en passant is.
Why the rule exists
The rule preserves the adjacent pawn’s capture after a two-square first move: for that one reply only, the pawn may be taken as though it had advanced a single square. This is part of the official FIDE Laws of Chess, not an optional variant.