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Reading chess notation

What do e4, Nf3, exd5 and O-O mean? Learn notation and you can follow books, videos and your own games.

Once you can read notation, every move in the move list makes sense when you play chess online.

Why learn notation

Notation is how you write a chess game down. Once you can read it, you can replay famous games from a book, follow which move a video is talking about, and look back over the game you just played to find where it went wrong.

Everyone today uses algebraic notation: each move says only which piece moved and which square it went to, usually in three or four characters. Books, tournaments and websites almost all use it.

Every square has a name

Think of the board as a grid of coordinates. Seen from White’s side:

• The columns are called files, lettered a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h from left to right.
• The rows are called ranks, numbered 1 to 8 starting from White’s side.
• A square’s name is its file letter plus its rank number, such as e4.

So White’s bottom-left corner is a1 and the bottom-right is h1. White’s king starts on e1 and Black’s queen starts on d8. The names never change, whichever colour you play — e4 is still e4 for Black.

A tip: remember “the white queen starts on d1, the black queen on d8, and the kings are on the e-file”, and counting to any other square gets quick.

Piece letters

Each piece gets a capital letter, mostly the first letter of its English name:

The knight is N rather than K because K is already taken by the king. Pawns have no letter — you simply leave it out.

Books from other countries may use letters from their own language. In French the bishop is the fou, so French books write F. If you see a letter you don’t recognise, check where the book was published.

Some books and websites — including the move list here — replace the letters with tiny piece icons. That is called figurine notation, and you read it exactly the same way.

Writing a move

The basic pattern is just one rule: piece letter + destination square.

• Nf3: a knight moves to f3.
• Be5: a bishop moves to e5.
• e4: a pawn moves to e4 (pawns have no letter, so only the square is written).

The starting square is left out, because most of the time only one piece can reach that square.

A whole game adds move numbers. One move number covers a move by White and a move by Black:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4

Read it as: move one, White pawn to e4, Black pawn to e5; move two, White knight to f3, Black knight to c6; move three, White bishop to c4. When a line stops after White’s move, Black’s reply is written 3... Bc5 — the three dots mean “this is Black’s move”.

Captures: x

When you capture a piece, put an x in front of the square (some books use the multiplication sign ×).

• Bxe5: a bishop captures the piece on e5.

Pawn captures are special: a pawn has no letter, so you start with the file the pawn came from.

• exd5: the pawn on the e-file captures diagonally on d5.

You may also see these variations, which all mean the same thing:

• Older German, Russian and Italian books use a colon, as in B:e5 or Be5:.
• Some opening reference books leave the capture sign out entirely, writing Be5 for Bxe5 and ed5 for exd5.

When two identical pieces can go there

If two pieces of the same kind can reach the same square, “Nd2” doesn’t say which one moved. Then you add where it came from, in this order:

1. If they stand on different files, add the file letter.
2. If they share a file, add the rank number instead.
3. If even that isn’t enough (this usually needs a third queen from a promotion), write both.

Adding the file letter

Adding the rank number

Writing both

For a capture, add the x as usual: Qh4xe1.

Castling: O-O and O-O-O

Castling isn’t written as a king move. It has its own symbols:

• O-O: kingside castling (towards the h-file).
• O-O-O: queenside castling (towards the a-file).

An easy way to remember: on the short side there are two squares between king and rook, so two O’s; on the long side there are three, so three O’s.

Some books use the digit zero, writing 0-0 and 0-0-0. It looks the same and means the same; computer game files mostly use the letter O. The castling rules themselves are in Special moves.

Promotion: =Q

When a pawn reaches the last rank and becomes another piece, write the new piece’s letter at the end:

• e8=Q: the e-pawn reaches e8 and becomes a queen.

The equals sign is the most common style today, but you will also see e8Q, e8(Q) or e8/Q — all the same move. If the promotion also gives check, add a +, as in e8=Q+.

En passant: e.p.

For an en passant capture, write the square where the capturing pawn ends up, not the square of the pawn that was taken. To make it clear you can add e.p. (short for the French en passant) at the end, but it is fine without.

When en passant is allowed is explained in Special moves.

Check, checkmate and results

Add a symbol at the end of the move:

Older books have other styles: check written as ch or a dagger †; a “discovered check” (moving one piece so the piece behind it gives check) as dis ch; a “double check” (two pieces giving check at once) as dbl ch or ++. Some reference books leave checks out altogether. The rules of check and checkmate are in Check, checkmate and draws.

The result goes at the end of the game:

Exclamation and question marks in books

When annotating a game, authors often add a mark after a move to say how good it was:

These are comments, not part of the move. When you replay the game, just ignore them.

Where notation came from

Before algebraic notation caught on, English-speaking countries mostly used “descriptive notation”. It named the squares from each player’s own side, so the same square had a different name for White and Black — White’s 1. e4, for example, was written P-K4 (the pawn in front of the king moves to the fourth square). It was longer and easier to mix up, and from the 1980s on most English-language books switched to algebraic notation; most of continental Europe had switched earlier.

As for where algebraic notation first appeared, one story traces it back a very long way to records of Persian chess, but the system everyone uses today was settled in modern times.

Practise it yourself

1. Play a game, then go through the move list beside the board (on a phone it is on the moves tab) and read each move out loud: “knight to f3”, “e-pawn takes d5”.
2. Find a chess book or a lesson video and set up the moves on a board. If a piece ends up somewhere odd, go back and check the coordinates.
3. Try reading 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 without looking at a board, picture the position, then set it up to check.

Once you are used to it, reading a game score feels as quick as reading text. Start a game and practise.

You can also return to the free chess home page to find more lessons.