You'll meet four ways of writing moves. They all say the same thing.
The site's notation
Every board here is labelled a–i along the files and 1–9 along the ranks, and moves are written the way the server stores them:
| Written | Means |
|---|---|
g3g4 | move the piece on g3 to g4 |
h2b8+ | move from h2 to b8 and promote |
G*e8 | drop a gold on e8 |
That is what you see in a game's move list, and what the lessons use.
Western notation (the explorer, English books)
English-language books and the opening explorer use Hodges notation. Files are numbered 1–9 from Sente's right to left, ranks 1–9 from the top (Gote's side), and a move is piece, then how it moves, then where to:
| Western | Site | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| P-76 | g3g4 | pawn moves to 7-6 |
| Bx22+ | h2b8+ | bishop captures on 2-2 and promotes |
| G*52 | G*e8 | gold dropped on 5-2 |
To translate a square: the site's letter is the file counted from the right (a = 1, i = 9), and the Western rank is 10 minus the site's number. So g3 is file 7, rank 7: 76 is g4.
Japanese notation
Japanese records use full-width numerals for the file and kanji numerals for the rank, then the piece: ７六歩 is P-76. 同 means "on the same square as the last move", so a recapture is written 同銀 — "silver takes back".
KIF files
KIF is the file format shogi programs share. Every finished game here can be downloaded as KIF from the game page or your dashboard, and you can open any KIF file with Open a KIF to step through it.