Capturing/Captures
Now, we’ll take a look at capturing/captures. This refers to when your own piece takes an enemy piece off the board.
Here are some rules for capturing:
-You cannot legally capture your own pieces! There is no backstabbing in chess.
-Except for the pawns, generally, pieces capture in-line with how they move.
-To sum up point two, most of the movement rules apply to piece capturing.
Let’s take a look at how all the pieces capture first, and the how the three rules might apply.
The Pawn
The pawn has a special capture, in which it moves diagonally forward one space. Try to visualize This. There is a White pawn on e4, and a Black pawn on d5. Now, if it was White’s move, he could capture the pawn on d5. Notice how the pawn moves in a diagonally forward manner. Think about it as “skipping a square” to the same color
Here’s a diagram of how this would work.
The starting moves were 1. e4 d5. As mentioned above, the white pawn can now capture on d5, which would look like this.
As you can see, the White pawn has captured the Black pawn in a diagonally forward motion. It’s a slight diagonal leap, so make sure to remember this movement. The notation would be: 2. exd5.
The pawn can capture in either direction, too. Take the moves 1. e4 f5, for example.
The pawn can still capture on f5 (both directions!), and after 2. exf5, the position looks like this.
The Bishop
The Bishop captures how it moves: it can capture any opposing piece in the “way.” The same movement rules apply: it cannot jump over its own comrades to capture a piece, and it can capture in both ways.
Let’s look at two examples. In the first example, this position occured after the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6, the Morphy’s defense, Ruy Lopez.
On Black’s last move, he threatened the bishop with a6. White can either retreat the Bishop, or take on c6. Note how the bishop can also take on a6, but that would be losing a Bishop for a pawn: not a good trade!
In this position, Black’s bishop has a wide range (we’ll be looking at captures regardless of whether they are good or bad moves) of attack. Black might be looking forward to capturing the e4 Knight, but note that he cannot capture the Knight on f3, or the bishop on g2. This is because the Knight on e4 is acting as a “barrier-” you cannot capture pieces that are behind another piece!
The Rook
The Rook captures how it moves, and the same rules apply for the Bishop. We’ll look at two examples, and then move on to the Queen.
We’ll look at rook captures in this position. The rook can safely capture on g4 with check, because the pawn is undefended. However, he cannot capture the bishop on the same rank because the knight is in the way.
In this position, despite being down a bunch of material, White still wins easily because his rooks dominate the pinned Knight. In this case, the Knight is not adequately defended, so White pounces on the capture.
1. Rxe7+ Qxe7 (forced) 2. Rxe7 (the second rook!) Kf8 (forced) 3. Rxd7.
In this final position, the White Rook is strangling Black, and the Queen is threatening to go to e7. Note how this is possible because of his Rook’s support of the Queen.
The Queen
Now, let’s move onto the queen. The Queen may be confusing at first due to all the possible movement options, but practice will help you nail this concept. The same capturing rules apply as for all the pieces except the pawn. Now, let’s look at some examples of the Queen’s awesome range.
I know this position is a little ridiculous, but bear with me here. Here’s a question:
Can the White Queen potentially capture all the black pawns?
A) no
B) yes
If you answered A, congrats! You’re right. If you answered B, take a look again. Remember that White’s queen can capture all the pawns except for the h5 pawn. It’s blocked by the g pawn, so White’s queen can’t magically hop over the g-pawn’s guard.
