“Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders.” - Savielly Tartakower
Alas! It brings me joy when I say we have successfully treated the chessboard, squares, and all the chess pieces. To me, it is amazing how far we have come, starting from the first lesson, and now we are on day 9 of the 14-day learning chess series. As part of this series for those who missed out on the previous lesson or more than one lesson, you can always check them out on my blog to stay up to date.
In this lesson, we are going to discuss the language of chess. Just like how we communicate on different Hive communities through our blog posts and the comment section, chess also has its own language, known as Algebraic Notation. It involves using symbols that represent each chess piece on the chessboard and the name of the square the piece lands on.
Think about Algebraic Notation as the special hieroglyphics that come with learning the game of chess. It is important to learn Algebraic Notation, also known as chess notation, as it will give you a better understanding of the game and how to record your chess moves, which you can use later to detect where you made errors. Moreover, learning it is quite easy; all you need to know are the symbols used to represent each chess piece and the names of the squares on the chessboard.
K represents King
Q represents Queen
R represents Rook
B represents Bishop
N represents Knight since K is already used for the King
And Pawns have no letter. You simply use the square they move to, for instance, when you see e4, you should know it is a pawn that made that move.
This is why it is important to follow the lesson outline. On the second day of the learning chess series, where I spoke about the chessboard, I also spoke about how to identify the name of a square on the chessboard. Simply by looking at what alphabet and number the square falls under. If it is the square b6, from the name we can tell that this square falls under the alphabet (b) and the number (6), thereby giving it the name b6. But this time, since we are dealing with chess notation, the symbol representing the piece that moved to the b6-square is needed as well. So that means if it was the Bishop that moved to the b6-square, the notation would be Bb6, meaning Bishop to b6.
Before I conclude with this lesson, other symbols are important to know as well, they include:
X represents capture. When a capture happens on board, we use X to indicate that a capture occurred. For example, the knight captures the pawn on a6, this will be the notation: Nxa6.
The + represents a check
++ for a double check
(#) for checkmate
= for promotion
Here is a video to help you better understand and use the language of chess.
Keep learning, and soon you will achieve that goal. See you in the next lesson.
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Thanks For Reading!
