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Originally the squares were numbered from each side, based on the piece that occupied a file. For example, the file could be Queen's Rook, squares 1 through 8 (QR1 to QR8), Queen's Knight (QN1 through QN8), and so forth. The problem is that the squares will be named as the same file for Black, but with the opposite numbers: White's QR1, the rook's home square, is Black's QR8.

This led to the so-called "algebraic" square numbers, which assign a name to each square as seen from White's position. The leftmost file, the Queen Rook file is the "a file" containing the squares a1 to a8. The next file is the "b file (Queen Knight file, b1 to b8), and so on across to the "h file" (h1 to h8) on the far right of the board. This allows the same square name to be used by both players. White's King is on e1 and Black's king is on e8.

Movement of a piece gives the square to which it moves, such as the opening move Nd3, where the King's Knight moves to King's Bishop-3. For pawn moves, only the ending square is given, such as the opening king pawn move E3 or e4.

Captures may use the letter X, with the starting square if necessary. A pawn capture move can be ed5 or exd5, or if there are two pawns attacking d5, it could be e4d5 or e4xd5.

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Q: How are chess moves designated with numbers and letters?
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