How to read chess notation
Every chess book, every puzzle solution and every game you will ever replay is written in the same short code. It takes about fifteen minutes to learn and it opens all of it.
- K Q R B N
- x takes, + check, # mate
- O-O castles
Modern chess uses algebraic notation. Every square has a name made of a letter and a number, every piece has a capital letter, and a move is the piece letter followed by the square it went to. That is nearly all of it.
The names
- Files are the columns, lettered a to h from White's left to White's right.
- Ranks are the rows, numbered 1 to 8 starting at White's end.
- Squares are file then rank, always lower case: e4, g8, a1.
- Pieces are K king, Q queen, R rook, B bishop, N knight. The knight gets N because the king already has K.
- Pawns have no letter. A move written as just a square, like e4, is a pawn move.
Where the names come from
The board with its coordinates, which are printed inside the edge squares on every diagram on this site. The square in front of White's king is e3, and the square two in front of it is e4.
The symbols
- x capture: Nxe5 is a knight taking on e5.
- + check: Qh5+.
- # checkmate: Qxf7#.
- O-O castling kingside, O-O-O queenside. Capital letter O, not zero, though you will see both.
- = promotion: e8=Q is a pawn reaching e8 and becoming a queen.
- e.p. en passant, written after the move and entirely optional: exd6 e.p.
- ! a good move, ? a bad one, !? interesting, ?! dubious, !! and ?? for the extremes. These are opinions, not part of the move.
Pawn captures use the file
A pawn has no letter, so a pawn capture is written with the file it came from: exd5 means the pawn on the e-file took something on d5. It is the only case where you write where a piece came from as a matter of course.
When two pieces could go to the same square
If two identical pieces can legally reach one square, the notation adds just enough to say which. The file first, the rank if the file does not settle it, and both if neither does.
Rad1 or Rfd1
Both white rooks can reach d1, so neither Rd1 nor anything shorter would be clear. The engine's own move list for this position contains Rad1 and Rfd1, naming the file each rook started on.
R1e2 or R4e2
Here the two rooks are on the same file, so the file letter would not help. The engine writes these moves R1e2 and R4e2, using the rank instead.
A whole opening, written out
Five moves of the Ruy Lopez
The first five moves of the Ruy Lopez, in the notation you will meet everywhere. White's moves are after the number, Black's are after them. Move five for White is O-O, which is the castling you can see in the second diagram.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7
Everything in that line was produced by the engine from the moves, including the castling and the move numbers.
Two more formats you will run into
PGN
Portable Game Notation is a whole game in a text file: a header with the players, the event and the date, then the moves in algebraic notation, then the result as 1-0, 0-1 or 1/2-1/2. Every chess site and every database imports and exports it, so a PGN file is how games move between programs.
FEN
Forsyth-Edwards Notation is one position in one line of text. The pieces rank by rank, then whose turn it is, then the castling rights, then the en passant square, then the fifty-move counter and the move number. Every diagram on this site carries its FEN in the image description, so any position here can be pasted into an analysis board.
The starting position is rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1, and the six fields are exactly the six things you would need to resume a game from a diagram.
Descriptive notation, for old books
Books printed before about 1980 in English use the older descriptive system, where the same move is written P-K4 and squares are named from each player's own side. It is not worth learning unless you own such a book, in which case it is worth an afternoon: the key is that K, Q, R, B, N and P name the file by the piece that started on it, and every rank is counted from the moving player's end.
Questions people ask
What does N mean in chess notation?
Knight. K was already taken by the king, so the knight gets the second letter of its name. The full set is K king, Q queen, R rook, B bishop, N knight, and pawns have no letter at all.
What does x mean in chess?
A capture. Nxe5 is a knight capturing whatever was on e5. For a pawn capture the file the pawn came from goes first, as in exd5.
What do the numbers mean in chess notation?
Two different things. The number before a move, as in 1.e4, is the move number, counting a move by White and a move by Black as one. The number in a square name, as in e4, is the rank, counted from White's end of the board.
What is the difference between PGN and FEN?
PGN is a whole game, moves and all. FEN is a single position in a single line, with no history. You use PGN to share a game and FEN to share a puzzle or a position you want analysed.
Do I need to learn notation to play chess?
No. You can play, and improve, without ever writing a move down. You need it the moment you want to read a chess book, follow a puzzle solution, or record a tournament game, which most events require.
Related
Notation sits under Reading and writing chess in the reference. Nearby: