Chess Notations

When learning chess, one of the most important things is the notations. Without Chess notations, explaining your ideas, calculating and blindfolded chess can be really difficult tasks.

In this blog i will show you two basic chess notations and how to practise them.

Long Notations

Long notations, even when they are longer then other notatons are the easiest notations to learn. For eg. when the king side pawn in front of king is pushed in the starting position two squares, the notation used will be e2e4 as the pawn on e2 square is moved to the e4 square.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, in long notations, we first check the starting square of the desired piece then check the ending position square and combine them as shown above.

In long notations, theres no sign for check or capture, for eg. a pawn on e4 captures a pawn on f5. The notation for this will be e4f5.

Short Notations

Short notations are shorter and easier to spell which in case of long notation would be a sometimes confusing for the listener as noone wants to hear e2e4 c7c5 g1f3 d7d6 d2d4 c5d4 f3d4 as this is very confusing for some. In tournament matches and other places this notation is used.

Lets take an opening move like Reti opening the move for it would be Nf3, in which N stands for the Horsy piece and f3 is the ending square. The letters for every piece is:-

N=Knight

B=Bishop

Q=Queen

R=Rook

K=King

The notations for pawns for lets say king pawn on moving two squares will be e4, meaning the starting square should not be written and for pawn P is not applicable. If a piece captures another piece or a pawn lets say a Horsy captures something on g5 square, the letter x should be written meaning Nxg5. 

In case of pawns, lets say scandinavian defense which is e4 d5 the move for the capture would be exd5 indicating that the pawn on e file captures the pawn on d5 square, notice that capital letter is not used in the letter e. 

For checks a + sign is added in the end of notations for eg. Bb5+

For checkmate a # sign is used at the end of notation for eg. Qxf7#

Now, if two same types of pieces can move to the same square, the square should be different so first see what if the difference in their square. Lets say two rooks are doubled up on the h file. One rook on h1 and other on h8 square. the difference in their square is the rank. one is on 8 rank while other on 1 rank. So, the notation would be R8h2 if the rook on h8 moves to h2 square. if the file is different then instead of rank the files are used in the same manner.

How to learn notations.

As you now know how to read and type notations, you need to learn how to speak them quickly and not take too much time.

For that, you should first learn geometry in mathematics, about how x and y axis intersect to make co-ordinates. To master them even more, you should try the vision tab in chess.com and try getting a high score everytime you can.