How to Read Chess Notation: What e4, Nf3 and Qxf7# Mean
Hiroki Obara · Developer
Open a chess book or a game commentary and you will see lines like “1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6”. This is a record of the moves. The standard way of writing it today is called algebraic notation, and the official rules for it are in Appendix C of the FIDE Laws of Chess.
In this post I go through what that appendix says, along with the symbols you often see in books, in the order a beginner needs them.
Square names
First you learn the names of the 64 squares. Seen from White’s side, the columns (files) are lettered a to h from left to right, and the rows (ranks) are numbered 1 to 8 from White’s side up. A square is named by its file letter and rank number. White’s king starts on e1 and Black’s king on e8.
From Black’s side, the a-file is on the right and rank 1 is the far side. Notation always uses the names as seen from White, so even when you read Black’s moves, you look at the board from White’s side.
Two landmarks are enough to get started, I think. White’s queen starts on d1 and Black’s on d8. And a1, the bottom left corner from White’s side, is a dark square.
Piece letters
The FIDE Laws use the English initial of each piece.
| Piece | Letter |
|---|---|
| King | K |
| Queen | Q |
| Rook | R |
| Bishop | B |
| Knight | N |
| Pawn | none |
The knight is N, not K, so that it is not confused with the king. Pawns have no letter. If a move shows only a square and no piece letter, it is a pawn move.
Reading a single move
The basic form is the piece letter followed by the square it moves to. Where it came from is not written.
- e4: a pawn moves to e4
- Nf3: a knight jumps to f3
- Bc4: a bishop moves to c4
Since the starting square is left out, you have to find on the board which piece of that type can reach the square. At first, this is the slowest part. For White’s first move Nf3, the only knight that can reach f3 is the one on g1.
Here is how moves are counted. “1. e4 e5” means that on move 1 White played e4 and Black played e5. In chess, one move number covers a White move and a Black move. When a commentary starts with a Black move, it puts three dots after the number, as in “3… Nf6”.
Capture, check and mate
Now the Qxf7# in the title can be read.
- x: a capture. Qxf7 means “the queen captures on f7”
- +: check
- #: checkmate. Some books write ++
When a pawn captures, there is no pawn letter, so the file it came from is written first. exd5 means “the pawn on the e-file captures on d5”.
The FIDE Laws treat x and + as optional. In books and commentaries, though, they are almost always written.
A well-known line that ends in Qxf7# is the Scholar’s Mate, a trap many beginners fall into.
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7#
White’s queen and bishop are both aiming at f7, next to Black’s king. With 3… Nf6 Black tried to chase the queen on h5, but that move did nothing to defend f7. After 4. Qxf7#, the queen is protected by the bishop on c4, so the king cannot take it, and it has no square to escape to.
If you set up these four moves on a board while reading the notation, the symbols start to look like the moves themselves.
Castling, promotion and en passant
Special moves have their own forms.
- O-O: castling kingside
- O-O-O: castling queenside
- e8=Q: a pawn moves to e8 and promotes to a queen
- exd6 e.p.: a capture en passant
In the FIDE appendix, castling is written with the digit zero, 0-0 and 0-0-0, and promotion is shown without an equals sign, as in d8Q. Books and apps often use the letter O and put = before the new piece instead. Both mean the same thing. The e.p. is often left out. Even if you see only exd6, the board will tell you it was en passant.
When two pieces of the same type can go to the same square
Sometimes two rooks or two knights can move to the same square. Then a character is added to show which one moved.
- Nbd2: the knight on the b-file goes to d2
- R1e2: the rook on rank 1 goes to e2
The rule is to use the file of departure first. If the two pieces are on the same file, so the file does not tell them apart, use the rank instead.
Evaluation marks
In annotated games, you will often see ! or ? after a move. These are not part of the notation rules. They are the annotator’s opinion. In general, ! is a good move, !! a brilliant one, ? a mistake, ?? a blunder, !? an interesting move and ?! a dubious one.
Where beginners get confused
There are three places where I think beginners often get stuck.
The first is that pawn moves have no piece letter. You see “e4” and start looking for which piece moved. If there is no letter, it is a pawn. Decide that once and the confusion goes away.
The second is that Black’s moves are also written with the square names seen from White. If you sit on Black’s side to replay them, left and right and forward and back are all reversed. At first I think it is best to sit on White’s side for both colours.
The third is that piece letters change with the language of the book. In German books, for example, the queen is D (Dame), the rook T (Turm), the bishop L (Läufer) and the knight S (Springer). Some books use small piece figures such as ♘ instead of letters. Older English books also use a different system, descriptive notation, where a move looks like P-K4. Almost all books today use algebraic notation, so learning that first is enough.
Practice for reading
What I recommend is replaying short lines on a board. Take a line of about four moves, like the Scholar’s Mate above, and play it one move at a time while looking at the book. Once you are used to that, try the reverse and write down moves you played yourself. Being able to write notation makes reading it faster too.
How the pieces move is in Chess Rules for Beginners, and how to answer a check is in Check vs Checkmate.
How Chess365 shows the moves
Chess365 is a checkmate puzzle app with 1,000 puzzles each of mate in 2, 3, 4 and 5. You always play White, you can make any legal move, and Black answers with the most stubborn defence. During a puzzle, the moves so far are shown in algebraic notation such as Qh5+ or e8=N#, so you can read back your own moves and Black’s replies as a game record. After solving, Review lets you step back and forward one move at a time.
How to use the app is in Getting Started with Chess365.
