In a comment to a recent post, Scott asks why someone doesn’t mention that you can’t make the en passant capture if the King is in check. The short answer is that you can make the en passant capture if it removes the check.
(Here are two videos to help illustrate the en passant rule.)
So, for example, in the following diagram, Black has just played 1… d5+. White’s King is in check and he has a pawn in position to make an en passant capture.
It is perfectly legal in this position for White to play exd6 (and it would be the best move on the board!), capturing the pawn en passant and removing the check against his King. The important point to remember here is that the capture is legal if it removes the check, but would be illegal if it did not remove the check.
Maybe he asked because on yahoo chess they dont let you capture en passant to remove a check.
I’ve never played on Yahoo chess, so I can’t really say anything about that. I would be very surprised if their interface is wrong about enforcing the rules properly. If an en passant capture will remove a check, then a properly written interface should permit the move.
Yahoo is flawed. I’ve won and lost games where Yahoo’s failure to allow en passant capture was a critical factor. Mostly I’ve lost – it’s incredibly frustrating.
That would be very frustrating. I’m going to have to check this out.
I have an AIR Factory chess app on my Android with the same issue. It’s apparently a common flaw to not be able to do an en passant maneuver in check.
If you look on chess.com puzzle 142983 it also doesn’t let you capture en passant to remove the check.
https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/142983