Chess — Strategy

Notation

At the table and in the archive moves are written in short algebraic notation — the way books, tournaments and almost every chess site record them.

Squares and pieces

Files are named a…h from left to right as White sees the board, ranks1…8 from the bottom. White's king starts on e1, Black's on e8.

Each piece is one letter:

A pawn has no letter: e4 means a pawn moved to e4.

Symbols

• x — a capture: Nxe5 — the knight takes on e5, exd5 — the pawn from the e-file takes on d5;
• + — check, # — mate;
• O-O — kingside castling, O-O-O — queenside castling;
• =Q — promotion: e8=Q — the pawn reaches e8 and becomes a queen;
• when two identical pieces can reach the same square, the file or rank the piece comes from is added: Nbd2, R1e2.

Long notation

If you prefer the notation of the old client, choose “Move notation” →“Long” in the table's “Options”: it shows both where a piece came from and where it went — Ng1-f3, with a colon for a capture — e4:d5. The choice applies to the archive too.

Archive and Telescope

Finished games are kept in the archive — back to 2001; the archive is open to signed-in players.You can step through any game move by move. Below the board there are“Download PGN” — a game file any chess program can open — and “Copy FEN” — the position at the current move as a single line. Chess960 games in the archive show the number of their starting position.

The club's latest games are shown by the “Telescope” on the home page.