How to Record Chess Moves?

Algebraic chess notation is used to record and describe the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers. The following diagram shows the layout of a chess board,

Each square on the chess board is marked by a Algebraic notation.

There are several advantages for recording chess moves,

• Replay or review your games to learn from your mistakes, you can do this with your teacher, a better player or a computer software.
  
• Re-set positions after illegal move sequences,
  
• Prove who is to move and what the position is,
• In the case the game is interrupted by an unforeseen events, like fire alarm, or the board was knocked down by accident, you can recover to the exact position and continue with the game later.

File and Rank

Each line of squares going up and down the board is called a file. Files are lettered with small letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. The Kings are on the e-file while the Queens are on the d-file.

Each line of squares going from left to right across the board is called a rank. Ranks are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The first rank is always where White sets up his major pieces; the eighth rank is where Black sets up his major pieces. At the start of the game, all your pawns are on the same rank.

Each square is identified by its file and rank. So at the start of a game White sets up his Queen on d1 square and Black sets up his Queen on d8 square.

Notation

Each piece in Chess has an abbreviation,

• King = K
• Queen = Q
• Rook = R
• Bishop = B
• Knight = N

There are so many pawns that no letter is used for a pawn.

There are some important symbols:

• x = takes or captures
• 0-0 = castling on the kingside or short castling
• 0-0-0 = castling on the queenside or long castling
• + = check
• # = checkmate, sometimes, it uses ++
  

Record The Move

Every time you move, you write the letter for the piece that moved followed by the name of the square it moved to. For example,

• Kd2 - K moves to d2 square
• Qg5 - Queen moves to g5 square
• Rd1 - Rook moves to d1 square
• Bg2 - Bishop moves to g2 square
• Nf3 - Knight moves to f3 square

When you capture with a piece, put an “x” between the name of the piece and capture square, regardless which the piece is on that square, for example,

• Qxd6 - Queen captures on d6 square
• Kxe2 - King captures on e2 square
• dxe5 - the d pawn captures on e5 square

In the case where two of the same pieces could move to the same square, then you need to use file or rank to differentiate the move.

In the diagram on the left, if you want to move the Knights e4 square, you need to write N3e4 which moves the Knight on c3 square to e4 square while N5e4 means moving the Knight on c5 to e4 square.

If you want to move the Rooks to d1 square, then write Rad1 to move the Rook on a1 square to d1 square or write Rfd1 to move the Rook on f1 square to d1 square.





When a pawn reaches the last rank (for White it's the 8th rank, for Black it's the 1st rank), the pawn can be promoted to a piece, you could record the move like this assuming a White pawn on e file is promoted,

• e8=Q - promote the pawn to a Queen
• e8=R - promote the pawn to a Rook
• e8=B - promote the pawn to a Bishop
• e8=N - promote the pawn to a Knight
  

Evaluation and Annotations

In Chess books and magazines, games are printed with some evaluations and annotations for teh readers. Here are a list of the special symbols used for this purpose,

• ? = weak move, mistake
• ?? = a major mistake or blunder
• ! = strong move
• !! = an excellent move
• !? - interesting move
• ?! - dubious move

An Example

The following shows an example of a game,

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Qe7 5.O-O d6 6.d4 Bb6
7.Bg5 f6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 fxg5 10.Qh5+ Kd7 11.Bxg5 Qg7
12.Be6+ Kxe6 13.Qe8+ Nge7 14.d5#