Editing Chess960 (section)

==Coding games and positions==
{{main|Fischer random chess numbering scheme}}
Recorded games must convey the Fischer Random Chess starting position.  Games recorded using the [[Portable Game Notation]] (PGN) can record the initial position using [[Forsyth–Edwards Notation]] (FEN), as the value of the "FEN" tag.  Castling is notated the same as in classical chess (except PGN requires letter ''O'', not number ''0''). Note that not all chess programs can handle castling correctly in Fischer Random Chess games. To correctly record a Fischer Random Chess game in PGN, an additional "Variant" tag (not "Variation" tag, which has a different meaning) must be used to identify the rules; the rule named "Fischerandom" is accepted by many chess programs as identifying Fischer Random Chess, though "Chess960" should be accepted as well. This means that in a PGN-recorded game, one of the PGN tags (after the initial seven tags) would look like this: [Variant "Fischerandom"].

FEN is capable of expressing all possible starting positions of Fischer Random Chess; however, unmodified FEN cannot express all possible positions of a Chess960 game.  In a game, a rook may move into the back row on the same side of the king as the other rook, or pawn(s) may be underpromoted into rook(s) and moved into the back row.  If a rook is unmoved and can still castle, yet there is more than one rook on that side, FEN notation as traditionally interpreted is ambiguous.  This is because FEN records that castling is possible on that side, but not ''which'' rook is still allowed to castle.

A modification of FEN, [[X-FEN]], has been devised by Reinhard Scharnagl to remove this ambiguity. In X-FEN, the castling markings "KQkq" have their expected meanings: "Q" and "q" mean a-side castling is still legal (for White and Black respectively), and "K" and "k" mean h-side castling is still legal (for White and Black respectively).  However, if there is more than one rook on the baseline on the same side of the king, and the rook that can castle is not the outermost rook on that side, then the file letter (uppercase for White) of the rook that can castle is used instead of "K", "k", "Q", or "q"; in X-FEN notation, castling potentials belong to the outermost rooks by default. The maximum length of the castling value is still four characters.  X-FEN is upwardly compatible with FEN, that is, a program supporting X-FEN will automatically use the normal FEN codes for a traditional chess starting position without requiring any special programming. As a benefit, all 18 pseudo FRC positions (positions with traditional placements of rooks and king) still remain uniquely encoded.

The solution implemented by chess engines like [[Shredder (chess)|Shredder]] and [[Fritz (chess)|Fritz]] is to use the letters of the columns on which the rooks began the game.  This scheme is sometimes called Shredder-FEN. For the traditional setup, Shredder-FEN would use HAha instead of KQkq.