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How to Call the Moves on a Chess Board

Chess is a particular game, and chess players can be quite demanding. Chess has a specific vocabulary of its own, and learning it is a wise move for any budding player. The arrangement of chessmen on the board is called rank and file, with rank being two-deep front to back, and file being the front row containing the pawns and the back row containing the king and queen. On the chessboard, rank is represented by numbers and file by letters. This alpha-numeric system begins at the left-hand white rook; represented by "a1," working its way outward. Calling moves is not always necessary, but writing them down is an exact system. When moves are called, it is done according to the written score.

Things You'll Need

Chess board
Chess men

Instructions

- 1
  Learn the layout of the chessboard. The left-hand white rook begins the file at "a," while the opposite white rook is at "h." Rank begins at 1, for the white rook, continuing to the 8 for the black rook on the opposite side. All moves are called using both rank and file, with the alphabetic file first and the numeric rank second.
- 2
  Call a basic move. If a white pawn is starting off at "g2," directly in front of the knight, and moves two spaces forward, the move is called as "pawn, g4." Similarly, when pawn "g7," in front of the black knight, is moved forward one space, it is called "pawn g6."
- 3
  Call a move that takes another piece. If the pawn at "e4" takes the pawn at "d5" the move is called "pawn e4 takes pawn d5." All moves are called in this manner, depending on the rank and file number, and, when a take move occurs, the piece taking the other piece is called first.

Chess & Checkers