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    		•

    The Basics of Chess

    Chess Notation






    To record a game of chess a special kind of notation is used. Examine the board below:



    8
    7
    6
    5
    4
    3
    2
    1
    		a b c d e f g h


    Along the left and bottom edges of the board there are letters and numbers.
    They are used to identify squares on the board.

    For example:

    8
    7
    6
    5
    4
    3
    2
    1
    		a b c d e f g h


    The white Pawn is on square f3 (the letter always comes before the number) and the black King on square h5.

    So, in practice, you could record a move in chess giving the coordinates of the start and finish squares.
    For example, f4-f5 would be short for "the piece on square f4 moves to square f5".
    Since that would be very impractical there are some symbols used to make notation a bit easier.



    Notation symbols:
    KKing
    QQueen
    RRook
    BBishop
    N or KtKnight
    PPawn
    xcaptures
    -moves to
    + or chcheck
    dis chdiscovered check
    ++ or dbl chdouble check
    e.p.en passant (in passing)
    !a good move
    !!a very good move
    ?a bad move
    ??a very bad move
    !?not sure, but looks good
    ?!not sure, but looks bad
    X or #checkmate
    o-ocastles kingside
    o-o-ocastles queenside



    • Here are a few moves of a game in long notation:

      1. Pe2-e4 Pe7-e5
      2. Ng1-f3 Nb8-c6

      And the resulting position...



    • And in short notation:

      1. e4 e5
      2. Nf3 Nc6
    The idea behind short notation is to leave out anything unnecessary out of long notation.
    In the above example e4 stands for Pe2-e4, because no other Pawn can move there at the start. The P is left out, as a Pawn isn't named (because all the other pieces are).
    "Nf3" stands for "Knight to f3". No other Knight can move there so naming the start square is not needed.

    If there are two pieces that could move to the same sqaure you specify which piece you mean by specifying
    the name of the rank or file that the piece moves from. For example, if you have one Knight on b2 and one Knight on d2, than both of them could move to c4. You specify which Knight you mean by giving the name of the file the Knight is on. And thus, if you wanted the b2 Knight to move to c4 the notation is Nbc4, and if you wanted the d2 Knight to move to c4 - Ndc4.

    Another example situation is one in which you have a Rook at a1 and another Rook at a8. If you wanted to move the Rook from a1 to a4 you couldn't simply type Ra4, because that could also mean the Rook from a8. To resolve which Rook you mean you name the rank the Rook is on as well. So in the above example we'd write R1a4, if we wanted to move the a1 Rook to a4, or R8a4, if we wanted to move the a8 Rook to a4.