Forced en passant?

Here is a question: Can you force a player to move en passant? This has only ever happened once in my 30+ years of playing chess; I was in a position which otherwise would have been a stale mate, but the opponent's last move gave me the option to take his pawn en passant. If en passant is at the discretion of the player, but there are no other moves available, is the player required to take it? Discuss.

En Passant is no different than any other move except for the fact that it's "Do it now or do it never" - you get one chance to take the pawn that went past your pawn.

So, for example, in the following position, assuming Black's last move was b5-b4, and so White's to move and he plays c4, en passant is FORCED by Black, yet oddly enough, he has a choice of en passants!  But yes, he must play en passant because he is not allowed to "Pass", and it's not stalemate, and so if you have a legal move, you must make a legal move.  Black has 2 of them, and both happen to be en passant, and so he must make one of his 2 available legal moves.:

Thanks for the answer, ThrillerFan.

SallyVIII, you should look up the definition of "troll." Legtimate questions about chess rules do not constitute trolling. Calling someone a troll, however, very well might.

Interestingly, this question was debated during the 19th century, according to Wikipedia. It was Howard Staunton, an English master, who definitively answered that the move IS required. If anyone has a source on some of the debate, I should like to see it. It has always occured to me that en passant is a choice, and as such, cannot be compelled.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/daily-puzzles/5-27-2020-obscured-promotion

You misread the question.

According to the official FIDE Handbook, en passant is a forced move, meaning that whenever an opportunity presents itself, a player MUST capture en passant.

En passant is ALWAYS forced. I don't know what you are talking about

I'm very much interested in this question. I'm just surprised by the number of people who misinterpreted the question itself.🙂😂

The answer is yes. If the only legal move in a position is en passant, it's forced. Which was answered is the second post, now that I fully looked

You're in checkmate.

Thank you to all who took the time to answer. This topic isn't trolling or stupid -- I'm a low-level player and didn't know for sure. I ended up at this page after Googling "forced en passant"

The official word from the FIDE Laws of Chess taking effect from 1 January 2018 (emphasis mine):

" 3.7.4.1 A pawn occupying a square on the same rank as and on an adjacent file to an opponent’s pawn which has just advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one square.
3.7.4.2 This capture is only legal on the move following this advance and is called an ‘en passant’ capture. "

Thus, en passant is not forced unless it is the only legal move available to a player.

Yes. If a player has legal moves available, he must choose one and play it.

It is easy to get confused on this point.  En passant is NOT forced - meaning just because an en passant is available doesn't mean you have to do it.  Unless it is your only move, in which case it is forced - but not because it's en passant (that's irrelevant), but rather because it happens to also be your only available move.

The reason it's confusing is that en passant cannot be deferred, meaning that if you want to play en passant you must do so at the move when it becomes available - if you want to wait until the next move, the door closes and you can't play it any more.  So it is sort-of forced, in the sense that if you want to play it, you are "forced" to do so on that move... you don't have the choice to wait until the next move.  But it's not really forced, in that you aren't obligated to play it (unless it is your only available move, which is the case for any move, regardless of whether or not it's en passant).

There is no way this is in any rule book. You had to have interpreted something stated incorrectly.

@stangajoseph When a 2 square pawn advance creates an en passant situation, there is always a choice. If the move will mate,(which means the pawn is protected IE: on b4) then your choices are call en passant and capture the pawn, or resign.

Presuming there are no better moves available, when the same advance attacks a trapped Queen you have 4 choices. Play another move which does not help, and allow capture. Take the protected pawn with your Queen, then lose the Queen. Call en passant and capture the pawn. Resign.

In any of the above, or something similar, it is obvious that there is only one good answer. Thus it would be considered that en passant would be a forced move

Here's a chess rules / en passent question:

In the following position, with White to move: