Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Chess Notation

Hello, this is my first blog post. I hope you like it.


                                                                                                                                                         
Chess notation is very important to know if you play chess. So, lets take a look at chess notation.

All the ranks and files on the chess board are given a letter and number. If you have a chess board get it and if you do not find a picture online. There should be a white square on your right hand side if the board is set up right. Look at the far left side of the chess board. The black square you see is called A 1. Look at the square that is above it. You are looking at A 2. This is called the A file. It goes to A 8. If you go to the file to the right of the A file you will be looking at the B file.The other six files are (in order) C, D, E, F, G,and H. Look at the first square in the F file.What is that square called? ( answer: F 1)  What's the second square in the F file called? (answer: F 2) If you want to find C 6 look at the sixth square in the C file.

You now know the what the squares are called. The next step is to learn the names of the pieces in chess notation.

K=king
Q=queen
R=rook
B=bishop
N=knight(since the king has K)

You probably noticed that there is no pawn notation. That's because there isn't any notation used  for the pawns.  Poor pawns.

What does N f 3 mean?                   (answer: knight to square f 3)

Now you need to learn chess notation symbols.

?          A bad move
??        A very bad move
?!         A dubious move
!?         An interesting move containing some risk
!           A good move
!!         A very good move
0-0     King side castling
0-0-0     Queen side castling
x           A capture has taken place
+         Check
++       Double check
#        Checkmate
1-0     White has won
0-1     Black has won
1/2-1/2     Draw

You now know what chess notation is.


(If you do not know how to play chess and want to learn how please leave a comment and I will make a post on how to play chess)

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