Learn Chess
Chess Notation Explained: How to Read Chess Moves
Chess notation is the system players use to write down every move of a game, whether that's to record their own games, solve puzzles from a book, or follow a grandmaster's analysis move by move. Once you can read it, entire libraries of chess content open up to you. If you haven't picked up a piece yet, our guide on how to play chess is the place to start. This one assumes you already know the pieces and just want to read and write their moves.
Here's what we'll cover:
- How the chessboard's squares are named, file by file and rank by rank.
- What each piece's letter stands for in algebraic chess notation, and how captures and special moves get written.
- A short practice exercise, followed by a real checkmate puzzle you can work out using nothing but the moves.
The Chessboard Coordinates: How Algebraic Chess Notation Works
Before the moves themselves make any sense, you need to know how the squares are named. Take White's side of the board. The eight columns, called files, run a to h from left to right. The a-file is the one on your left and the h-file is the one on your right. The eight rows, called ranks, are numbered 1 to 8. Rank 1 sits closest to you. Rank 8 is the row furthest away.
Every square takes its name from the file it's in and the rank it's on. The square e4, for instance, is where the e-file crosses the fourth rank. That's the whole idea behind algebraic chess notation. Once you know the coordinates, two characters are enough to pin down any square on the board.
With the coordinates down, you're ready for the notation itself.
How to Read Chess Notation: Piece Letters and Captures
Each piece gets a letter, except one. In English notation, the king is K, the queen is Q, the rook is R, the bishop is B, and the knight is N. The knight uses N instead of K, since K already belongs to the king. Those letters come from the English piece names, so a game score printed in another language will use different ones. Everything else, the squares, the x, the O-O and the #, is the same everywhere.
The pawn is the exception. It never gets a letter at all. Write the destination square by itself and that's a pawn move. So Re4 means a rook has moved to e4, while e4 on its own means a pawn has moved to e4.
Captures are marked with an x. If the king captures a rook sitting on e4, you'd write Kxe4. You only write the piece doing the capturing and the square it lands on, never what it actually captured. The board, or your memory of the position, tells you the rest.
A handful of special moves round out the system:
- Kingside castling is written O-O.
- Queenside castling is written O-O-O.
- Promotion is marked with an equals sign followed by the piece the pawn becomes. a8=Q means a pawn has reached a8 and turned into a queen.
- Check is marked with a plus sign, +.
- Checkmate is marked with a hash, #.
- En passant has no trick to it. It's written just like any ordinary pawn capture, for example exd6.
Practice Reading Chess Notation
Time to put this to work. Before you scroll down for the answers, translate these five moves in your head, or on a scrap of paper if you'd rather:
1. Ra5
2. f6
3. Qxb3
4. exd5
5. Nxa7
Here's how each one reads:
1. The rook moves to a5.
2. The pawn advances to f6.
3. The queen captures on b3, where a bishop had been standing.
4. The e-pawn captures the pawn on d5.
5. The knight captures the pawn on a7.
You couldn't have known which piece was taken from the notation alone, and that's the point.
If you'd like more practice spotting squares at a glance, this free coordinate trainer is worth a few minutes.
A Checkmate Puzzle to Test What You've Learned
Now for the real thing, a mate in two. White to move. If you have a physical board, set the position up but don't touch the pieces. Working it out in your head is what actually trains your visualization, and that matters more than getting there quickly.
The first move can look strange until you spot what the bishop on b3 is doing. It sits on the same diagonal as the black king on g8, with the f7 pawn stuck in between, so f7 is pinned and can't move.
1.Qxg6!!
The f7 pawn still can't take the queen. That pin on the a2-g8 diagonal hasn't gone anywhere. And now the queen on g6 is pinning the g7 pawn straight down the g-file against the black king, so g7 can't take the bishop on f6 either. Black is helpless against the threat of Qxg7 mate and has nothing better than moving a piece, for example:
1...Be6 2.Qxg7# is checkmate, a Kiss of Death mate with the queen defended by the bishop on f6. There was no way around it for Black.
In plain English, on the first move White's queen captures the black pawn on g6. Black answers by developing the bishop to e6. White then delivers checkmate by capturing the pawn on g7 with the queen, the # you met earlier.
Your Move
That's chess notation covered. Coordinates, piece letters, captures, and the special moves are all there. From here:
- If you're still getting comfortable with how the pieces move and set up, our chess basics guide is a good next stop.
- For the complete rulebook, castling, promotion, check and checkmate included, see our guide to the rules of chess.
- Brand new to the game altogether? Go back to how to play chess for the full starting point.
- Want more puzzles like the one above? We have plenty of mate-in-one exercises to work through, and a full rundown of the main chess openings once you're ready to build an opening repertoire.