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The Great Pawn Hunter
Chess Tutorial

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Understanding Chess Notation

Each square on the chess board can be uniquely identified by combining a letter of the alphabet and a number. The files in chess are identified by the letters a through h. The rows of the chess board, which are called ranks, are identified by numbers. They go from one to eight.

The white knight is sitting on the square b1.If we wanted to move the white knight to the square c3 then we would write:
1) Nc3
The "1)" means that it is the first move we are making. The "N" stands for knight.

It is now the black pieces turn to move. To move the black knight to the square d5, we add to the line just written.
1) Nc3 Nd5
Notice how Nd5 is written in the column after Nc3. The white moves are always written in the second column while the black moves are always written in the third column.

To make white's second move we add another row to our first row and write a "2)" in the first column followed by white's move.
1) Nc3 Nd5
2) Nxd5
The "x" means that the white knight captures what is sitting on the d5 square.
To represent the other pieces we use "Q" for queen, "R" for rook, "B" for bishop, and "K" for king. Next we will discuss the notation for castling.

To castle the white king to the right just remember that there are two empty squares between the king and the kings rook on h1. It would be written as:
1) o-o

To castle the black king to the left just remember that there are three empty squares between the king and the queen's rook on a8. Castling to the left for the black's move would be written as:
1) o-o o-o-o

Pawns have no representation in chess notation. Instead, we only mention the file that the pawn is sitting on.

To move the e2 pawn up two squares to the e4 square, we write:
1) e4

To move the black d pawn down two squares to d5, we write:
1) e4 d5
It is now white's turn to move and it captures the pawn on d5. It is written as :
2) exd5
The "e" represents the pawn on the e file. The "x" means "captures". The "d5" represents the square that the captured pawn is sitting on.

Copyright © Manus Patrick Fealy 1994-2002