Chess/Headscratchers

• The En Passant rule makes no sense.
  • The en passant rule was developed after someone came up with the "pawns can move two spaces on their first turn" one and was put in as a fix so that they couldn't get past attackers magically. It's difficult to explain without a board, but you get the idea.
  • Somehow, it's okay that other pieces can move past others magically, but how dare a pawn attempt advancing past another - we have to give the other pieces a special ability to capture it without even capturing it!
    • Please note that only pawns are able to capture en passant. Yes, it's a magical ability, but so is being able to move twice in one move.
    • The oppression of the pawns is one of the great social outrages of the western boardgame world.
      • Even Mafalda realized it.
  • In the interest of being a spoilsport (and a giant geek), the "Pawn moves two spaces in their first move" was created for the sole reason to hasten the start of the game (since otherwice the game tended to be 1) e2-e3, e7-e6 2) e3-e4, e6-e5). It wasn't intended to give any strategical boost. It then took about five seconds for about five million chess players to figure out that the until-then strategy of putting a pawn at 4/5 file in order to stop the two pawns that could only move to the two squares that he was attacking from moving was side-stepped by them simply double-move to the side of the attacking piece. The En Passant rule was an Obvious Rule Patch to eliminate this. [Cue G.I. Joe music].
  • If we really care for realism, then chess is supposed to simulate a real battle, and everything takes place in real time. The alternating turns are just an abstraction, and one move (one for white, one for black) happens the same time. So, the pawn tries to move two spaces, and is captured before it can complete the move. This makes sense, as the en passant rule can only be used immediately after the double pawn move, if your next move is not an en passant, you will not be allowed to perform it later.
• Prior to 1972, it was possible to Castle using a promoted Rook. Wikipedia notes how this would work using a Rook on the same file as the King, but how would it work if the Rook and the King were on different files?
  • It wouldn't. And remember, you couldn't Castle if any of the E-File's is under attack or occupied. One in a million chance indeed.
    • You're slightly mistaken, it doesn't matter whether the Castling rook is under attack or passing though any attacked squares.
• Why is Castling considered a King move, but not a Rook move?
  • Because of touch-move.
    • That in no way explains why Castling isn't considered both a King move and a Rook move.
      • Well, it is -- I'm just saying that the only reason to consider it primarily a King move is because that's the piece you have to move first.
  • Let me rephrase my question, why do the rules require you to move the King first when you're Castling?
    • Because your move is over after you make a legal move and release the piece you moved - and moving your rook next to your king is a legal move. When you move your king two squares, it's clear that your move is not yet over when you release the king.
      • Castling results on both rooks being on the same side of the king. So that has nothing to do with it. The real reason is that castling is a modern variant of the "king's leap" (the king could make one knight style move per game in older versions) which only involved moving the king.
• The rules for check and checkmate have always struck me as somewhat pointless. Instead of "you must deal with check because the rules say you have to", why not just leave it as "you really ought to deal with check because otherwise your opponent will take your king next turn"?
  • Technically, the rules do not require you to deal with check: you can resign instead. Since the only alternative to dealing with being in check is to lose, not dealing with being in check is effectively to resign. There are certain customs, however, about the proper way to resign.
    • The rule that it's illegal to ignore check (and thus move into check) makes the game a little deeper by making stalemate possible (when one side has no legal moves to make on their turn, it's a draw). A basic example is Queen and King vs King. With this rule in effect, a careless player can stalemate the enemy King by using the Queen to completely restrict but not check it. Whereas if the king was allowed to move into check, almost all stalemates would be impossible, and, in the example, the side with the Queen would still win by taking the enemy King once it was forced to move into check. Famous games have occurred where one side, completely lost, forcibly gives away all their material in a series of checks, and after the last piece is taken, saves the game through the stalemate that suddenly appears.
      • What is so great about a stalemate anyway? If the most frequent outcome of a game is that nobody wins, it sounds like a major design flaw.
      • It's not particularly frequent. The most frequent result in master level is resignation, at junior level it is checkmate(because juniors can't see six moves in advanced). What makes the stalemate rule an improvement is that attrition isn't a sure path to victory the way it is in checkers. Attrition is useful but no matter how far ground down a player, the superior player still has to watch. It also makes for counterintuitive nuances. For instance it is common to promote to castle rather then queen simply to make sure the opponents king will have more places to run to until you are finally ready.