How to learn chess coordinates

You learn chess coordinates by drilling them, a few minutes a day, until you stop translating. A square lights up, you say its name, and the answer arrives before you have counted anything. Give it a week or two of short daily sessions. Reading about the board will not do it; you have to answer.

What the coordinates are

Every square has a two character name. The letter is the file, the column that runs from your side of the board to your opponent's: a to h, left to right from White's seat. The number is the rank, the row: 1 to 8, starting at White's edge. White's king starts on e1 and Black's on e8. The corner at White's left hand, a1, is a dark square.

People get that last detail wrong when they set up a board. A dark square goes in each player's left hand corner. If h1 is dark, the board is turned the wrong way.

Learn eight squares first

Do not try to memorise 64 names. Learn the four centre squares and read everything else from them.

• d4 and e5 are dark.
• e4 and d5 are light.

Then the corners: a1 dark, h1 light, a8 light, h8 dark. From these eight squares you can find any other by stepping one or two squares in a direction you already know. Looking for c3, you go one file left of d4 and one rank down. Within a week you stop stepping and see it.

If you also want to know a square's colour without looking, there is a rule for it in the square colours guide.

The drill that does the work

The method is the one every coordinate trainer uses. A square is highlighted on an empty board. You name it. The next one appears. You keep going for a fixed time and the score is how many you got right. Lichess has a version, chess.com has one, and so does Name the Square here, which you can play as a guest.

Two settings matter more than which trainer you pick.

Start with a quarter of the board. The a1 to d4 quadrant has 16 squares, and you can be reliable on 16 squares in one sitting. Then a1 to h4, then the full board. Jumping straight to 64 squares teaches you to guess.

Answer out loud if you can. In a real game you read and hear coordinates far more often than you click them, so train the form you will use. Name the Square accepts voice in Chrome, Edge and Safari. Find the Square is the reverse drill: you hear a coordinate and tap the square. Do both.

How long a session should be

Two minutes, once or twice a day. Coordinates are recall, and frequency builds recall faster than long sessions do. Ten two minute sessions across a week beat one twenty minute grind, and the second session on a day is worth less than the first. Stop while you are still getting them right.

A fair target: 30 correct in 30 seconds on the full board with no mistakes. If you are still counting files on your fingers after two weeks, go back to the quadrant level for a couple of days and come up again.

Learn the board from Black's side

If you learn the board from White's chair and stay there, you will get lost the first time you follow a game as Black. From Black's side the h file is on your left and rank 8 is nearest you. The names stay the same and only your view changes. a1 is still a1, now in the far right corner.

Drill with the board flipped once you are reliable from White's side. Name the Square has a flipped level for this, and a mixed level where the orientation changes between squares, which is closer to how it feels to switch colours between games. Expect your score to halve the first time. It comes back within a few days.

Common mistakes

• Counting from a1 every time. Count from the nearest anchor square instead, then stop counting.
• Only practising with the board in front of you. Once you are fluent, hide the board and say the colour of a named square with your eyes closed. That is the start of visualisation.
• Treating it as a one week project. Learning takes a week or two; keeping it takes a minute a week.
• Skipping notation. Coordinates are half of reading chess. The other half, piece letters and captures and checks, is a short read: chess notation explained.

When you are done

You are done when a coordinate in a book or a video puts your eye on the square before you have thought about it, from either side of the board. Test it: open any annotated game, read the moves without a board, and see whether you can follow the first ten. Then keep a short drill in your week so it stays that way.