Chess Algebraic Notation: The Complete Guide

I’m sure everyone on this site has seen this at some point: a letter or two followed by a number, used to describe a chess move.  It’s everywhere. Tournament coverage, Game Review, blog posts. It is frequently used in Portable Game Notations (PGNs), and can be found in the move list of any game. It’s also a must for playing in FIDE-rated tournaments and professional chess. That something is known as Algebraic Notation (aka Chess Notation).

 But what is chess notation? And how is it determined? This post will hopefully help you gain a better understanding of how chess notation works, and how you can find the chess notation of a move. 

A Brief History

Algebraic chess notation was first conceived by Syrian chess player Philip Starma. It quickly gained popularity and soon surpassed Descriptive Notation (describing the move in long, drawn-out sentences full of useless words like “draught” and “house”) in popularity. It has since been internationally adopted as the standard way to notate chess games. 

The Basics

Algebraic Notation draws heavily on board coordinates. For those who don’t know, the ranks (or horizontal lines on the chess board) are denoted by the numbers 1-8 (1 being the first rank on White’s side), and the files (or vertical columns) on the chessboard are notated a-h (from left to right). Regular (non-pawn) chess pieces are abbreviated as follows (NOTE: all non-pawn piece abbreviations are capitalized so that they aren’t confused with file abbreviations.):

King: K

Queen: Q

Rook: R

Bishop: B

Knight: N

In addition, if the move is in a game, it is typically preceded by the move number, followed by an ellipsis (examples: 1…e4, 15…Bxf7). Now that you know the initial details, let’s dive into the real notation part!

Notating Regular Moves (not captures):

Chess notation is formulated simply: For pawns, the moves are notated by the square the pawn moves to. For example, if a pawn moves to c4, the move would be denoted simply by c4. For regular pieces, the moves are notated by the abbreviation of the piece and the square it moves to. For example, if a rook moves to the f7 square, it would be denoted as Rf7.

Notating Captures:

The notation for captures is straightforward as well. If a pawn captures another pawn, it is notated by the file the pawn is on followed by an “x” (indicating a capture), and the square it captures a piece on. For example, if a pawn on the f-file captures a piece (it doesn’t matter what piece) on the e4 square, it would be denoted as fxe4. Similarly, if a pawn on the a-file captured a piece on the b7 square, it would be denoted as axb7 (please note that en passant captures are notated the exact same way). If a regular piece captures, it is similar, except the abbreviation of the piece comes before the “x” and the coordinate. For example, if a bishop captures a piece on f2, it would be denoted as Bxf2. 

Notating Checks and Checkmates

If a piece delivers a check when it makes a move, it is denoted by a “+” at the end of the move. For example, if a rook moves to a1 and delivers a check, it would be denoted as Ra1+. Similarly, if a queen captures on c1 and delivers a check, it would be denoted as Qxc1+. Pawn checks are the exact same (for example: d4+, dxf7+). Checkmates are denoted by a “#” (or less commonly “++”) and follow the same rules as checks: the regular notation of the move except this time followed by a “#” and not a ‘+”.

Notating Castling

Castling is denoted in two ways. Short (kingside) castling is denoted by O-O (not zeros), and long (queenside) castling is denoted by

O-O-O.

Notating Promotions

If a pawn promotes to another piece, it is denoted by the regular move notation (f1, a8), followed by an “=” and the abbreviation for the piece that it promotes to. For example, if a pawn moves to f8 and promotes to a rook, it is denoted as f8=Q. If that pawn was originally on the e-file and captured on f8 to promote, it is denoted as exf8=Q. Similarly, if it delivers a check or checkmate, the notation is followed by a “+” or “#”, depending on if it’s a check or checkmate.

Disambiguations

 Let’s say you have a rook on a1 and a rook on h8, and we want to move to the a8 square. Both pieces are of the same type, and they both can move to the same square. If we simply notated it as Ra8, a person just reading it wouldn’t be able to tell which rook moved to a8. This notation would be considered ambiguous (unclear/confusing). In order to prevent confusion, chess notation employs something called a disambiguation. In this case, we require a “disambiguation file”. You show this by adding the file (or in other cases file and rank) of the piece after its abbreviation. For example, if the rook on a1 moved to a8, it would be denoted as Raa8. Similarly, if the rook on h8 moved to a8, it would be denoted as Rha8. 

Double Disambiguations

But when do we disambiguate on the rank as well? Well, if there are three or more pieces that can move to the same square, then the piece that moves is denoted by the file and rank. For example, if we have three knights (by promotion) of the same color intending to move to the d5 square, and we want the c7 knight to move to d5, it would be denoted as Nc7d4. This is known as Double Disambiguation. The same protocol for captures and checks applies as usual.