A new member's first league game is a lot to take in. The clock, the handshake, the scoresheet. Of those, the scoresheet is the one most people have never done before, and the one that can spoil an otherwise good game. Ten minutes on a club night fixes most of it.
Start with the squares
Every square has a name: a file letter from a to h, left to right from White's side, and a rank number from 1 to 8, from White's side to Black's. Set up a board and have the new member name a few squares from each side. Most people get it within a couple of minutes; the hard part is doing it from Black's side, so spend the time there.
Then the pieces and signs
A move is the piece's letter and the square it goes to. Pawns have no letter. That covers most moves. The rest are a handful of signs:
| Write | Means |
|---|---|
| K, Q, R, B, N | King, queen, rook, bishop, knight |
| x | A capture, as in Bxf7 or exd5 |
| + and # | Check, and checkmate |
| O-O and O-O-O | Castling short, and castling long |
| =Q | A pawn promotes, as in e8=Q |
Leave disambiguation, en passant and the rest for later. Our guide to writing chess notation covers every case when they are ready.
One rule: write the move after you play it
Under the FIDE Laws, a player must not write a move in advance. You make your move, press the clock, then write it down. You may reply to your opponent's move before writing theirs, but you must write your previous move before you make another. New players often write their move first to check it on paper; teach them not to from the start, because an arbiter can penalise it.
A ten-minute session
- Name squares.Two minutes from White's side, two from Black's.
- Read a short game aloud.One person reads the moves, the new member plays them on the board.
- Swap.Play a few moves each and have the new member write them down. Check the sheet together.
- Play a slow game, writing every move.Against a patient member, with no clock or a long one.
The slips everyone makes
- Writing a move in the wrong column, so White's and Black's moves change places.
- Forgetting the x on a capture. Not a problem for the record, but it helps later.
- Falling behind in time trouble and never catching up.
Tell them what to do when it goes wrong: if a move is missed, leave a gap and carry on. Fill it in after the game, with the opponent's help. A scoresheet with an honest gap is far more useful than one with a guess.
Things that help
A printed scoresheet in the club's box, for practice. The free notation trainer on our website, which shows a position and asks for the move. And patience: by the third league game, most new members stop thinking about the scoresheet at all.
General information as at 5 November 2026, not legal advice or an arbiter's ruling. Event dates, entry details and rules change from year to year; check with your event, league or arbiter before you rely on any of this.
Written by Remiam. More from Remiam