Chess notation: how to read and write moves
How to play chess
How do you read chess notation?
Chess notation is the way moves are written down. Every square has a name made of a letter (the column, a to h from left to right) and a number (the row, 1 to 8 from White's side). A move is written as the piece letter and the square it goes to.
| ♜ | ♞ | ♝ | ♛ | ♚ | ♝ | ♞ | ♜ |
| ♟ | ♟ | ♟ | ♟ | ♟ | ♟ | ♟ | ♟ |
| ♙ | |||||||
| ♙ | ♙ | ♙ | ♙ | ♙ | ♙ | ♙ | |
| ♖ | ♘ | ♗ | ♕ | ♔ | ♗ | ♘ | ♖ |
The rules
- Piece letters: K king, Q queen, R rook, B bishop, N knight. Pawns have no letter, so a pawn move is just the square, like e4.
- Nf3 means a knight moves to f3. Bc4 means a bishop moves to c4.
- An x means a capture: Bxf7 is a bishop capturing on f7, and exd5 means the pawn from the e-file captures on d5.
- A plus sign means check (Qh5+) and a hash sign means checkmate (Qxf7#).
- O-O means castling kingside and O-O-O means castling queenside.
- A game is written as numbered pairs: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 means White played e4, Black e5, then White Nf3 and Black Nc6.
Common mistakes
- Writing the column and row the wrong way round (it is always the letter first).
- Forgetting that White's row 1 is at the bottom of the diagram.
Remember
Letter for the piece, letter and number for the square, x for a capture.