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Chess notation, FEN and PGN

How to read moves like Nf3 and exd5, what the long strings called FEN mean, and how games are saved and shared as PGN.

6 min readUpdated October 2026

Algebraic notation

Every square has a name made of its file letter and rank number, so the white king starts on e1 and the black queen on d8. A move is written as the piece letter followed by the square it lands on.

LetterPiece
KKing
QQueen
RRook
BBishop
NKnight (K is taken by the king)
nonePawn
  • Nf3: a knight moves to f3. e4: a pawn moves to e4.
  • x means a capture. Bxc6 is a bishop taking on c6. For pawns the starting file is given: exd5.
  • + is check and # is checkmate.
  • O-O is castling kingside and O-O-O is castling queenside.
  • e8=Q is a pawn promoting to a queen.
  • If two identical pieces could reach the same square, add the starting file or rank: Nbd2, R1e2.

Annotators add symbols for quality: ! good, !! brilliant, ? mistake, ?? blunder, !? interesting, ?! dubious. The review tool uses the same marks.

FEN: a position in one line

FEN (Forsyth-Edwards Notation) describes a single position as text. This is the starting position:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

It has six fields separated by spaces:

  1. Piece placement, rank 8 down to rank 1, separated by /. Capital letters are White, lowercase are Black, and numbers count empty squares.
  2. Side to move: w or b.
  3. Castling rights: K and Q for White kingside and queenside, k and q for Black, or - for none.
  4. En passant square: the square a pawn could capture onto, or -.
  5. Halfmove clock: moves since the last capture or pawn move, used for the fifty-move rule.
  6. Move number.

To use a FEN here, open Load FEN or PGN in the analyser and paste it, or set up the board and press Copy FEN to get one. Most sites, including Lichess and Chess.com, can export the FEN of any position.

PGN: a whole game

PGN (Portable Game Notation) stores a complete game as plain text: some tags in square brackets, then the moves.

[Event "Casual game"]
[White "Paul Morphy"]
[Black "Duke Karl / Count Isouard"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. dxe5 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 dxe5
6. Bc4 Nf6 7. Qb3 Qe7 8. Nc3 c6 9. Bg5 b5 10. Nxb5 cxb5
11. Bxb5+ Nbd7 12. O-O-O Rd8 13. Rxd7 Rxd7 14. Rd1 Qe6
15. Bxd7+ Nxd7 16. Qb8+ Nxb8 17. Rd8# 1-0

Paste a PGN into the Review tab to analyse a game, or into Load FEN or PGN to step through it. Comments in curly braces and side variations in brackets are fine; they are skipped when loading.

The Opera Game, final positionThe PGN above ends here. Seventeen moves of pure development and attack: one of the most famous games ever played.
Open in the analyser →