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How pawns move


The pawn can move one square directly forward if that square is empty.

On its first move (witness the fact that the pawn is still on its original square) a pawn can move two squares directly forward if both squares are empty.

The pawn can capture a chessman diagonally only, and only if there is an opponent’s chessman on the square diagonally adjacent to the pawn and further from the player making the move. The pawn cannot move diagonally backwards to make a capture.

If your opponent’s king occupies the square diagonally adjacent to your pawn, and further from you than the pawn, then that king is in check.

A pawn does not capture or check directly forward. The pawn captures and checks one square diagonally, toward the player’s opponent.

Capturing en passant


A pawn attacking a square that has been crossed by an opponent’s pawn that has advanced two squares in one move may capture that opponent’s pawn as if it had moved forward only one square.

Only a pawn can capture en passant.

Only a pawn can be captured en passant.

En passant capture can be made only in the next move after the opponent’s pawn has made its two-square advance.

The pawn making the en passant capture moves to the square crossed by the opponent’s pawn.

The captured pawn is removed from the chessboard and the game as with any other capture.

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 White rook on white square
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 White king on black square
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Above: Position before black pawn advances two squares. Below: Position after black pawn advances two squares, putting the white king in check.

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 White king on black square
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The black pawn puts the white king into check, leaving White with only one possible legal move: f x g5 ++.

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Position after en passant capture: The white pawn captured the black pawn on the square the black pawn crossed, putting the black king in checkmate.


Promotion


A pawn which reaches the last row on the chessboard, (the row which was occupied by the opponent’s rooks, knights, bishops, king and queen at the start of the game,) immediately becomes a rook, knight, bishop or queen. The player moving the pawn chooses which of these chessmen it becomes.

In many cases, the queen is selected, and some chess computers automatically promote the pawn to a queen, but such chess computers do not correctly reflect the rules of chess.

The action of the promoted chessman commences at once. That is, the chessman puts the opponent’s king in check if the chessman attacks the square occupied by that king. If that check cannot be parried, it is checkmate and the game is won by the player checkmating that king.

Likewise, in some situations after a pawn is promoted, the opponent’s king is not in check and that opponent cannot make any legal move. In such cases, it is a statemate and the game is drawn. The player moving the pawn might have done better selecting a different chessman.
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Above: Position before promotion. Below: Position after promotion to knight. The knight puts the king in check because the knight attacks the square occupied by the king. When the king moves out of check, the knight can capture the queen.

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Another example of promotion follows:

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WHITE

Above: Position before promotion. Below: White pawn becomes a queen, producing a stalemate. Perhaps White would have done better promoting to a rook, which would have left the square at a6 open to the black king.

BLACK

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Note: In practice, it is very rare that the player has an advantage in promoting to a knight, bishop or rook. The queen is the most powerful of chessmen and is usually selected.