En Passant

Always feels like sleight of hand no matter how many times you play it!

@Benjamin-Barker

Yes, it's one of those oddball rules one must be aware of.

How much of my life could have been spent doing something more productive, instead of responding to support messages which generally go like this :

"My opponent cheated" / "Your software is garbage, it has bugs" / etc...

Typical response after looking at the game in question :

"Are you aware of the En passant rule?" 😉

@Russ

Never play en passant against a man in a pub.

@moonbus said
@Russ

Never play en passant against a man in a pub.

I will sometimes play it even if it's not the best move because it just looks odd

I've been there Russ.

I was phoned at my house one night to go along to Sandy Bells
and stop a riot over a row about the En Passant rule.
I had to carefully explain to this brute of man what the player did was legal.

DO NOT PLAY EN PASSANT IN A PUB AGAINST A STRANGER!
---
Remember that post from about 10 years ago when both players
thought it was checkmate (it had been with a pawn and it was not
checkmate because the mated played could play PxP en passant.)

We tried dropping hints but both players thought one had checkmated the other.
They blamed the RHP computer and things started getting nasty when they were
told to study the rules of chess.

Then a MOD happened along to tell us to stop discussing a game in progress.

I still chuckle about that.

@moonbus
Too funny! I learned a long time ago to ask my opponent before the game started. alcohol and the rule do not mix well.

The rule that causes the most controversy in our league matches is the condition that a win on time only counts if the winning player has sufficient mating material, otherwise it's a draw. This doesn't mean with best play - it just means that a mate is technically possible with the material on the board. I've seen several arguments over that!