DIAGRAM 1

The white Queen must be on the white square and the black Queen
on the black square. These eight, men are commonly known as
"pieces" in distinction from the Pawns. The latter occupy the
line of squares immediately in front of the Pieces.

The lines of squares now occupied by the men and the other four
vacant horizontal lines between them are called RANKS. The
vertical lines of squares running perpendicularly to the ranks
are called FILES. The oblique lines of squares, that is, lines
which connect squares of the same color, are called DIAGONALS.

To describe the moves of the men on the board in a simple way it
is necessary to indicate every square and every man by a short
symbol. For this purpose different systems have been suggested at
different times, but only two of them have been generally
adopted. The older one, called the "descriptive notation," still
predominates in the English, French and Spanish speaking
countries, but as leading English and American writers have
lately used the newer "algebraic notation" which is much more
simple, the latter will be employed in this book. Later the
former method will be explained for the sake of completeness.

In the algebraic notation the files are lettered from a to h,
starting from the file on White's left. The ranks are numbered
from 1 to 8, starting from the rank on which White's pieces stand
at the beginning of the game. Each square is now easily indicated
by naming the file and rank at which it forms the intersection.