History Of En Passant
Fix En Passant bug- random noob
if anybody reading this I am gonna remake this blog in a little bit cause right now it is kind of unreadable
we have all come to accept the fate of En Passant, after learning the basics of chess. Some understand it more than others at first, for example, all of the "fix En Passant" threads that pop up once in a while here.
But have we ever wondered where and why En Passant came to be? well take a little journey and see how history shaped En Passant
Well first off, I probably should clarify what an en passant is, An En Passant is when there is a pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent pawn that has been pushed two squares in the same move from the original square which may capture the opponent's pawn as though it had only been moved the one pawn. there are also three conditions that must be met while making an en passant
- Almost all the time, the pawn will be on the fifth rank
- En passant can happen only the move after the pawn has been pushed two squares
- The captured pawn must have moved two squares, otherwise, it is a regular capture
so where did this seemingly strange move come from?
Was when the rules of chess were still being molded around in Europe, in 1561, but it was only officially accepted into the rulebook in 1880. This rule was originally made because chess was made for discussing and practicing "real war" strategies. So assume one unit moves adjacent to another unit, it will be most likely that the first unit will "fire". In chess, the fire was expressed as capturing. So imagine a unit marches towards the action at double time (two squares), would probably rest halfway through, and in the morning (when it is your turn again) they would continue to march the other half of the journey.
Now assume that a pawn marches one square, rest, then tries to complete its march to the second square but if there is an enemy pawn on the diagonal file, the second pawn might start a dual with the first pawn. And since the first pawn is resting, waiting to continue its journey to the next square, the second pawn attacking the first one diagonally would win. that results in an en passant capture.
The motivation for adding this was to prevent the newly added two-square first move for pawns from allowing a pawn to evade capture by an enemy pawn. More specifically, to make fewer passed pawns. If nobody could en passant, it would completely change the game. you could simply push your pawn past an enemy pawn to create a well-passed pawn.
Thus, en passant was introduced to give players who advanced a single chance to take a pawn that might overwise be uncapturable.
This addition was also meant to drastically speed up the game. Not as fast as bullet chess, but it could make many endgames a lot quicker with this new rule. Without it, some endgames would just drag on for a long time, unless it was a draw for some reason.
Before this modern rule became universal in the mid-1800s, debates arose about its proper form in those regions where en passant captures were allowed. Some would even ask why this rule only applied to pawns, as after all pawns can pass other pieces, and pieces pass each other with impunity, so why couldn't pawns? Strangely, some printed-out rules failed to clarify that it was limited to the immediate reply. Though the idea was expressed quite clearly by some, showing that it was understood. But only in recent times, the rule was clarified that in a triple occurrence draw claim, a position is not a repetition of an earlier position if an en passant capture was possible in the first position.
People rejected this idea when it came. Will I ever use it? how can it help me? why make chess any more complicated than it is? people don't accept it. to quote @pawns to go,
Unless you want a game of checkers, En Passant is more horrible then the skewer -@pawnstogo
it would take time for people to understand that you could indeed, gain positional value from en passant. take a position from a common opening.
