Chess Path For Beginners — From Zero To Hero (Part 2)

Hello everyone! Welcome back to My Chess Blog once again!

• So, you’ve learned how to move the pieces, how to set-up the board correctly, the question is, what do we learn now and where is the right path?

Well, before we go any further to learning Chess Fundamentals and Essentials, we have to know about Chess Notation.

• What is Chess Notation?

It’s simply a method for writing down chess moves and it helps us to write down chess games or anything else, which helps us to memorise them easily.

• How do we write each chess piece in notation?

Well, it’s quite easy. Although there are 3 types of notation in general, only one is used nowadays, but before we learn the modern one, let’s get familiar with the old one first.

Queen — Q

King — K

Knight — N

Rook — R

Pawn - (Just the square that it goes to)

Bishop — B

Now, to make this somehow simple, let’s look at this image below to understand the concept better.

This is the starting position of a normal chess game

• Now, if we didnt’ know already, White always moves first, then Black follows and it continues likewise, until the game ends at some point.

Now, let’s suppose, that White moves their King’s pawn up by two squares, from e2 to e4.

In our lessons later on, we’ll see this opening quite frequently.

Now, in notation, we would write this move like this : 1.e2-e4.

1. shows the first move of the game, e2 shows the initial square of the piece and e4 shows the square that the piece moved to.

• 2. If you noticed already, we didn’t write Pe2-e4, because that method is old and forgotten. Pawn notation doesn’t require “P” anymore.

• Now, if the concept still isn’t clear, let me try to give another example, now with less pieces on the board.

• It may help to clear your vision. (It can be overwhelming to look at Chess as a beginner)

Look at this image below and study it, so that you understand the logic.

Here, we see a knight with all its available squares to go to.

Now, look at this White Knight, that is sitting on the e4 square at the moment. It has 8 available squares, but obviously, we are going to choose only one.

Let it be d6, for example.

Test yourself : If you would want to write that exact move, how would you do it?

If you answered Ne4-d6, you are correct!

Good job!

N shows the Knight, e4 shows the initial square and d6 shows the final square.

(If this concept still isn’t clear to you, let me know in the comments below.)

• In the following lesson, that will be posted very shortly, we are going to learn about the aim of the game, which is dethroning(defeating) the King.

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Thank you for reading!