One of my students requested a lesson on
en passant, so I created one. We did not need to
go over the rule as he had shown that he understands that much. So, what was I to do? The first position that came to mind was the game that provides the position for the banner at the top of the page. This game was a 3 0 blitz game that finished in under two minutes. I played it on my iPad while waiting for my lunch in the Classic Cafe in Deer Park, Washington. I had spent a couple of hours in the morning teaching chess at a homeschool resource center and had another couple of hours teaching chess in classrooms at Deer Park Elementary. I recall showing the game to the students that afternoon because it illustrated
en passant and checkmate, two vital rules beginners need to learn.
White to move
Black played
13...f5+. An en passant capture is White's only legal move.
14.exf6 and then the d-pawn advanced with checkmate. It was a memorable game with errors on both sides, but some interesting tactics that have instructive value.
I followed this position with a couple from Roman Pelts and Lev Alburt,
Comprehensive Chess Course, vols. I and II (1986). Then some mates in one culled from several sources. The student blazed through these very quickly. We then spent a couple of minutes on his successful effort to find the moves that had to be played to reach this position, which appears both in Ilya Maizelis,
The Soviet Chess Primer (2014) and in Pelts and Alburt.
Black to move
I found two short games in the
Lichess forums that were composed in answer to the question: what is the shortest possible game that ends via checkmate with an
en passant capture? Both White and Black are able to checkmate in this manner on the sixth move.
We finished with an endgame exercise and a mate in four that I composed an hour before the lesson.
White to move and win
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