Chess Moves En Passant, Capture, Check and Checkmate
Special Chess Moves
Chess has several special moves that every player should know. After castling, you should acquaint yourself with the following chess moves: en passant, capture, check and checkmate. The en passant involves the pawn; capture refers to one chessman taking over the position of an enemy piece; check and checkmate are familiar terms that denote threat to a king.
En Passant
For its first move, the pawn can be advanced forward by one square or two squares. This can only be done once and when the pawn has not yet made a previous move.
But just as the pawn has a special move at the beginning, there is also a counter move to it that another pawn can make. To illustrate:
Suppose a black pawn moves two squares forward to put it in the same rank/row as a white pawn. The white pawn can still seized the black pawn's square by moving passed it and behind it. The white pawn thus takes up the square that the black pawn would have been in had it advanced by just a square.
This move is called "en passant" and can only be done immediately after the enemy pawn has jumped two squares. The phrase is French for "in passing."
Capture
Chess is an action game. As you move around your pieces to try to get to your opponent's king, you also want to seize as many of your opponents' pieces as you can.
When a chessman is in a square that can be occupied in a future move by an enemy piece, we say the former is under attack by the latter. If it is any chessman other than the king, it can be captured and removed from the board. The piece that captured it takes over the square.
Check
If it is a king occupying the square under attack, we say the king is "in check." For example, if the king is in the same file or rank as an enemy rook and there is no other chessman (friend or foe) between them, the king is in check. The king must be removed from the threatened square immediately. You cannot make any move when it is your turn except to move the king out of harm's way.
Note that the king cannot castle his way out of a check. Castling can only be done when the king is not held in check.
Checkmate
When it is not possible to move the king out of check, it is a checkmate. The game ends and the player whose king has been checkmated loses. For example, if the king is in the diagonal of an enemy bishop and moving it would put it in check by other enemy chessmen, it is a checkmate and the game is over.
Checkmate is from a Persian phrase meaning "the king is dead."