[blind-chess] How to read a FEN diagram
- From: "R Dinger" <rrdinger@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "chess" <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 11:44:58 -0700
Hi All,
Someone mentioned they did not know how to read a FEN, so I am trying to give a
short tutorial.
The pieces are notated using the usual letters along with the letter P for
Pawns:
King is K
Queen is Q
Rook is R
Bishop is B
Knight is N
and Pawn is P
Upper case letters denote White pieces and lower case letters denote Black
pieces.
The board is arranged by ranks (rows) from the top of the board from White's
perspective. A slash denotes the end of a rank.
Finally, empty squares are denoted by the number of consecutive empty squares
in a row.
Thus, for example, if the 8th rank at the top of the board contained Black
Rooks on c8 and f8 and the Black King on g8, the first line of the FEN would
read:
2r2rk1/
Although a FEN is usually all on a single line, I put each rank on a new line
to make it easier to read and follow with a screen reader.
Now for a more complex example. Consider what the board looks like after the
first few moves:
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 *
This simple position should be easy to visualize in your mind as you have seen
it many times before. The FEN for this is:
rnbqkbnr/
pppp1ppp/
8/
4p3/
4P3/
5N2/
PPPP1PPP/
RNBQKB1R
To set up a problem, simply work your way down the FEN diagram reading each
line a character at a time setting up the board a row at a time. In jaws the
capital letters are spoken in a higher pitch in order to distinguish them. You
can increase that pitch difference in the options menu of jaws. I find it
helpful to also set jaws to speak the alpha names of the letters like "alpha"
for a and "bravo" for b and so on and simply move along through the FEN using
the arrow keys.
IN a complete FEN, following the board layout portion discussed above, there
are a few more items separated by spaces. I normally do not include the extra
items in our problems.
Richard
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