Enter Your Reply The Comment You're Replying To H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Mar 1 09:08 AM EST in reply to Jörg Knappen from 07:55 AM:In the FIDE laws of Chess it says: 3.7 a. The pawn may move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it on the same file, or b. on its first move the pawn may move as in 3.7.a or alternatively it may advance two squares along the same file provided both squares are unoccupied, or c. the pawn may move to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece, which is diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece. (emphasis mine). But this is just one possible formulation out of many equivalent ones, and one cannot be sure that in the future or elsewhere (e.g. in other languages) the formulation would not be different. (This is not without precedent; in recent time the wording of the rules for castling was changed, to make it more explicit that 'vertical castling' with a Rook obtained from promotion is not allowed.) I would interpret "on its original square" as an absolute statement about location irrespective of prior history. (But then also meaning not just on 2nd rank, but also in the same file.) That would be another matter if it said "still on its original square", which would imply it must have been on that square all the time. Are you sure about the two Knights? I think the problem there is not so much shedding a tempo as that you are a tempo short to beat the stalemate. Edit Form You may not post a new comment, because ItemID MSswap-chess does not match any item.