Every move of every game in chess history can be written down in a few characters, in a system that players all over the world read the same way. It looks cryptic at first — Nbd7, exd6, Qxf7# — but it follows a handful of rules, and once you know them you can follow any book, any lesson and any of the great games on this site move by move.
The system is called algebraic notation. Older English and American books used a different one, descriptive notation, in which the first move 1.e4 was written P-K4; if you find a very old book, that is what it will look like. Everything modern uses algebraic.
The files — the columns — are lettered a to h, from White’s left to White’s right. The ranks — the rows — are numbered 1 to 8, from White’s side up. A square’s name is simply its letter followed by its number.
Because the names are fixed, e4 is always the same square, whether you are playing White or Black. The coordinates printed around the edge of our board are there to help you learn them.
| Piece | Letter |
|---|---|
| King | K |
| Queen | Q |
| Rook | R |
| Bishop | B |
| Knight | N |
| Pawn | no letter |
The knight is N because K is already taken by the king. Pawns have no letter at all: a move written with just a square, like e4, is always a pawn move. The letters are the English initials; books in other languages use their own — a knight is C in Portuguese and Spanish, for example, and S in German.
A move is written as the piece letter followed by the square it goes to. So Nf3 means “a knight moves to f3”, and e4 means “a pawn moves to e4”. You do not write where the piece came from — only where it lands — because in almost every position only one piece of that kind can get there.
Moves are numbered in pairs, one for White and one for Black: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 means White played e4, Black answered e5, White played Nf3, and Black answered Nc6. When a sentence starts with a Black move on its own, three dots stand in for the White move: 2…Nc6 means “Black’s second move, Nc6”.
Sometimes two identical pieces can go to the same square, and “Nd2” would not say which one moved. Then you add just enough information to tell them apart — normally the file the piece came from.
If the two pieces stand on the same file, the letter would not help, so you use the rank instead.
These moves are all explained in Special moves.
Here is a complete game, short enough to read in one breath: 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7#. White plays a pawn to e4, Black answers; White’s bishop goes to c4 and a knight comes out for Black; White’s queen jumps to h5, Black brings out the other knight — a blunder — and the queen takes on f7 with checkmate.
When players comment on games, they mark moves with punctuation. You will see these in books, in our articles and all over the internet:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ! | a good move |
| !! | a brilliant move |
| ? | a mistake |
| ?? | a blunder |
| !? | an interesting move, perhaps risky |
| ?! | a dubious move |
They are opinions, not part of the move. Two annotators can disagree about whether a move deserves a “!” or a “!?” — and modern engines have taken a few famous “!!” moves down a peg or two, as you can read in the Immortal Game.
The quickest way to learn notation is to use it. As you play on Chess Thrill, the latest moves appear beside the board in exactly this form, and your online games are saved so you can replay them afterwards in My Games.
Chess pieces: “cburnett” set by Colin M. L. Burnett, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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