When the game starts these pieces are placed in their initial positions, which are predefined. This initial arrangement is as follows : each player has his own pieces positioned along the two ranks of the board that are closest to him. All 8 pawns are placed on the innermost rank of the two.

The rest of the pieces are placed in the outermost rank in the following order : Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Rook. This order is from left to right for WHITE and from right to left for BLACK, so that same pieces are opposed on each file of the board.

Now that we have appropriately named the ranks and the files we may identify a square by looking up the rank and the file to which it belongs. Thus, still viewing from WHITE’s side, the bottom left square is the square “a1”, since it belongs to file a and to the first rank. Its adjacent squares are “b1” on the right and “a2” just above it.

So we may repeat the initial position using chess notation : the white pawns are placed on squares a2 through h2, while the black ones are placed on squares a7 through h7; the white rooks are placed on a1 and h1 and the black ones on a8 and h8; the white knights are placed on b1 and g1 and the black ones on b8 and g8; the white bishops are placed on c1 and f1 and the black ones on c8 and f8; the white queen is placed on d1 and the black queen on d8; finally the white king is placed on e1 and the black king on e8. Note that the chessboard should be so placed that the a1 square is black.

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