Chess notation is a necessary evil if you wish to learn to play well or to play in tournaments (where keeping track of your games in chess notation is required by the rules). You will need to get used to looking at diagrams of chess positions such as the following one.

This diagram shows the starting position of a chess game, of course. The pieces are not hard to identify, although beginners sometimes confuse the king and queen. Notice that the king is the one with the cross on his head, and the queen is the one with the Lisa Simpson haircut. You should also make note of the fact that chess diagrams are always oriented so that the player of the white pieces is at the bottom of the board and the player of the black pieces is at the top. (On rare occasions the board in such a diagram will be oriented differently, but there will always be a note telling you of that. In the absence of any such note, you may assume that white is at the bottom and black at the top.) Some diagrams will also include the letters denoting names of files and numbers denoting names of ranks. This one does not, and you should probably get used to that, since many diagrams in books and magazines do not. There are also different chess fonts that are used to make such diagrams. This one is called Linares. Others will look somewhat different, but not so much that you should be confused.

To illustrate chess notation we will play through a game between two chess greats: R. Reti playing the white pieces, and S. Tartakover playing the black pieces. This was a skittles game, which is to say a game played for fun rather than one played in a competition. That may explain why it is unusually short! We'll play through the game four times to illustrate four different varieties of chess notation. The first three are very similar to each other. The last is quite different but is rarely used anymore. It is most commonly found in old chess books, but since some of those old books are the best chess books ever written, if you plan to study chess you will need to know this notation.

Let's begin with the notation often used by chess-playing computers. Computer notation is simple. You begin by writing the number of the move, then you write the square the piece is moved from, followed by a dash, followed by the square the piece is moved to. For example, 3. e2-e4 would mean that this is move three and that whatever piece was on square e2 was moved to square e4. Simple, right? Here is the game. See if you can play it through on your chessboard.

1. e2-e4 c7-c6 (On move one, white moved a pawn from e2 to e4, and black moved a pawn from c7 to c6.)
2. d2-d4 d7-d5 (On move two, white moved a pawn from d2 to d4, and black moved a pawn from d7 to d5.)
3. b1-c3 d5-e4 (On move three, white moved a knight from b1 to c3, and black captured white's pawn on e4 with his own pawn on d5.)
4. c3-e4 g8-f6 (On move four, white recaptured the black pawn on e4 with his knight on c3, and black moved his knight from g8 to f6.)
5. d1-d3 e7-e5 (On move five, white moved his queen from d1 to d3, and black moved a pawn from e7 to e5.)
6. d4-e5 d8-a5 (On move six, white captured the black pawn on e5 with his own pawn on d4, and black moved his queen from d8 to a5 with check.)
7. c1-d2 a5-e5 (On move seven, white eliminated the check by interposing a bishop, which he moved from c1 to d2, and black captured white's pawn on e5 with his queen on a5.)
8. e1-c1 f6-e4 (On move eight, white castled queenside. Notice that castling is considered a king move, so only the movement of the king is noted. The movement of the rook from a1 to d1, however, is also included in the move. Black captured white's knight on e4 with his knight on f6.)
9. d3-d8 e8-d8 (On move nine, white moved his queen from d3 to d8 with check, and black did the only thing he could, capturing the white queen on d8 with his king on e8.)
10. d2-g5 d8-e8 (On move ten, white put black in check by moving his bishop from d2 to g5. Notice that black is in check twice, once by the bishop and once by the rook on d1. Black moved his king back from d8 to e8 to get out of check.)
11. d1-d8 (On move eleven, white moved his rook from d1 to d8. There is no black move because black is checkmated.)

The final position of the game is shown in the diagram at the right.

This computer notation has the advantage of being very simple, but it is also not very informative, in that unless you have a board to look at you don't know which pieces are being moved or when a king is in check, etc. We will now look at long algebraic notation, which is an enhancement of computer notation. In LAN, captures are denoted by changing the dash to an x. Other than that, pawn moves look the same. Moves by other pieces are noted by putting the letter standing for the piece before the first square (the square it starts on). Remember that N stands for knight and K for king. Beginners often use K for both, which is rather confusing. Checks are indicated by a plus sign and checkmates by a double plus sign, or sometimes a pound sign. There is also a special notation for castling. O-O means kingside castling, and O-O-O means queenside castling. Remember that these moves involve the rook as well as the king. Here is the same game in LAN.

1.	e2-e4	c7-c6
2.	d2-d4	d7-d5
3.	Nb1-c3	d5xe4	Note the N before white's move indicating a knight was moved.
4.	Nc3xe4	Ng8-f6	White's move is a capture, as indicated by the x.
5.	Qd1-d3	e7-e5
6.	d4xe5	Qd8-a5+
7.	Bc1-d2	Qa5xe5
8.	O-O-O	Nf6xe4	Note the queenside castle here by white.
9.	Qd3-d8+	Ke8xd8
10.	Bd2-g5+	Kd8-e8
11.	Rd1-d8++

In some versions of LAN, the last move by white would have been written Rd1-d8#. Also, move ten might have been written Bd2-g5++, the double plus sign indicating the double check by both the rook and bishop. You just have to look at the game to tell these two slightly different versions of LAN apart. The latter one is used mostly in Europe.

From long algebraic, we go to the third system, which is called short algebraic notation. SAN, as you might expect from the name, is an abbreviation of LAN, and it is the notation used by most players worldwide. It is also the notation used in the rest of these lessons, so pay close attention. In SAN, a move is indicated only by writing the letter standing for the piece moved and the name of the square it moved to. If the move is a capture, an x is placed between the letter and the square name. No letters are used for pawns. Castling moves and checks are indicated the same way (with the same confusion concerning checks that was noted above for LAN). The only problem with this abbreviated system is that sometimes moves written in it are ambiguous. There are no examples of that in this game, so let's have a look.

1.	e4	c6	Both pawn moves, as indicated by the absence of a capital letter.
2.	d4	d5	Two more pawn moves. Note only the final square is given.
3.	Nc3	dxe4	Notice how the pawn capture is written--almost like it is in LAN.
4.	Nxe4	Nf6	Two knight moves, as indicated by the capital letters before the final square name. White's knight move resulted in a capture on e4.
5.	Qd3	e5
6.	dxe5	Qa5+
7.	Bd2	Qxe5
8.	O-O-O	Nxe4	Castling moves are written the same way.
9.	Qd8+	Kxd8	In some versions of SAN even the x for captures is left out. Tricky!
10.	Bg5+	Ke8
11.	Rd8++

Now let's see how ambiguity can arise with this system. Follow these moves by playing them on your own board. Notice that when a game is written in this paragraph format, which is quite common, the moves that were actually made in the game are written in bold face, whereas any notes are written in a lightface type.

1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 c5 3. Bg2 Nc6 4. d3 e5 5. Nbd2 Here we have an ambiguous move. If it were written simply as 5. Nd2, we would not know which of the white knights had moved to d2. The problem is solved by writing the name of either the file or the rank the moving piece comes from, with the file being preferred unless that would also be ambiguous. Had it been the other knight that had moved to d2, the move would have been written 5. Nfd2. Now let's follow the game for a few more moves. 5...Nf6 Here is another nuance of games written in this paragraph format. When the move is by black, and the white move is not written (because it already has been), this is indicated by the ellipsis ... written after the move number. This tells us we are skipping over the white part of the move and making a move for black. 6. e4 d4 7. a4 Be7 8. Nc4 Nd7 9. O-O O-O 10. Bd2 a6? The question mark here is not actually part of the notation. Rather it indicates that the commentator thinks this was a bad move. An exclamation mark indicates a particularly good move, in the commentator's opinion. 11.a5! g6 12. Qe2 f5 13. Rae1 Another ambiguous move. A simple 13. Re1 would not have told us which rook moved. Notice here that indicating the rank the moving piece came from, 13. R1e1, would also be ambiguous. This is the part of SAN that beginners most frequently get wrong. They neglect to properly write their ambiguous moves in correct notation. It takes practice to get it, so you might want to start keeping track of your own games from now on.

We'll leave the game at this point and move on to our last notation, which is English or descriptive notation. Here we have a whole new ballgame. In descriptive, the ranks are counted from each players side of the board. Thus, what would be rank 6 in LAN or SAN, is rank 6 for white but rank 3 for black in descriptive. The right side of the board (from white's perspective) is called the kingside, and the pieces there are called the king's rook (KR), king's knight (KN), and king's bishop (KB). The left side of the board is called the queenside, and the pieces there are named accordingly: queen's rook (QR), etc. The file the queen's bishop starts on is called the queen's bishop file. Squares along this file are counted off as queen's bishop one (QB1), queen's bishop two (QB2), queen's bishop three (QB3), and so on. With this brief introduction I think you will be able to follow the game. If you get stuck, refer to one of the notations above to see how the move works.

1.	P-K4	P-QB3	Pawns have a letter in descriptive. White has moved his KP to e4 (K4) and black has moved his QBP to c6 (his QB3).
2.	P-Q4	P-Q4	Both sides have moved a pawn to his Q4, which is d4 for white and d5 for black.
3.	N-QB3	PxP	Just writing N-B3 for white would have been ambiguous, so we indicate which B3 we mean. The pawn capture is not ambiguous. There is only one possible pawn capture on the board.
4.	NxP	N-B3	Neither move is ambiguous. There is only one possible NxP for white and only one possible N-B3 for black.
5.	Q-Q3	P-K4
6.	PxP	Q-R4 ch	The check is written differently in descriptive, too.
7.	B-Q2	QxKP	The pawn capture by black would be ambiguous if written QxP, so we indicate which pawn was captured.
8.	O-O-O	NxN	Castling moves are written the same way. Sometimes the abbreviation Kt is used for knight instead of N. Thus, black's move might have been written KtxKt.
9.	Q-Q8 ch	KxQ
10.	B-N5 ch	K-K1	Both white bishops can move to a N5 square, but only one can give check there, so that must be the one that was moved.
11.	R-Q8 chm

As I said, descriptive notation is not used much these days, but it is the one I learned on and preferred for many years. It's still seen often enough that you'll need to know it if you get serious about chess.

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