Chess notation is simply a method to write down and record your game. Learning chess notation will help you in many ways. One way that it will help you is that it will provide a history of what you did in the game and how your opponent reacted. This will allow you to recreate the game in the future and to study what you did right and what you did wrong. Chess notation is what allows us to review the games of the greatest chess players in the world. Without chess notation we would not be able to recreate those games. Chess notation also can clear up any confusion during a game about which moves have or have not been made. Chess notation is a must learn for anyone who wants to become a serious chess player.
There are a variety of chess notations, but we will use the simplest method here. First, turn your chessboard so that the right hand corner of the board, as you and your opponent face it, is the light color square. If the squares are white and green, then the right hand corner of the chessboard is white. If the squares of the chessboard are red and black, then the right hand corner is red.
Now you can begin setting up the pieces and always remember that the queen goes on her own color (white queen white/red square). A common term for the horizontal squares is "ranks" and the vertical squares are referred to as "files". You will need to know these terms in order to grasp chess notation. Ranks are labeled with numbers, and files are labeled with letters. Next we will learn the identifications of the different squares.