Why Notate Chess Games Notation Examples: All games of chess contain a lesson, but you can only ● Pawn move: ● Castle extract this if you have the game documented. If a pawn Kingside: Another reason to use chess notation is that you can use moves to e4 0-0 your records to review the critical moments of your games the notation and analyze where you could have done better. for that move How to Write Down Your Moves: would be: e4 Chess notation combines the chess piece moved with the new square it has moved to, on the chess board. ● ● Castle Chess notation uses abbreviations for each piece, using Piece Move: capitalized letters. Each square has it's own name as you If a Queen Queenside: can see in this diagram. moves to the 0-0-0 “d5” square, ● King = K the notation ● Queen = Q for that move ● Rook = R would be: ● Bishop = B Q-d5 ● Knight = N ● ● Pawn = P or none Capture and ● Removing ● Capture = x check: If a Ambiguity: ● Check = + Bishop If both rooks ● Castle = 0-0 or 0-0-0 captures a could move to Captures: When a move is a capture, write an “x” between piece on c3 d8, indicate the piece moved and the square where the piece moved to giving check, which one make the capture. Check: When a move is a check, a “+” the notation moves there. sign is added to the end of the notation. Promotion: When would be: a pawn promotes, write an equal sign and then the Bxc3+ abbreviation of the piece to which it is promoted (e8=Q). Castling: Kingside castle: “0-0” Queenside castle: “0-0-0” ● Promotion: If Removing Ambiguity: Sometimes two pieces can both a pawn move to the same square. If you have rooks on both b8 and promotes to a g8, then either of them could move to d8. In this case you Queen on the need to add a starting identifier in between the piece and e8 square: the square. In this example, if the rook beginning on b8 e8=Q were moved to d8, it would be written as “Rb-d8”. Rb-d8 Page 1 – © Copyright Learners Chess 2020 Page 2 – © Copyright Learners Chess 2020.