Free Chess PGN & FEN Viewer
Paste or open a game or position to step through it on a board, read the moves and check the notation.
What is a Chess PGN & FEN Viewer?
This chess PGN and FEN viewer replays a game written in Portable Game Notation, or shows a position written in Forsyth–Edwards Notation, on a board you can step through. It explains every move in words, lists the FEN after each one and writes the game back as tidy PGN.
Every move is checked for legality as the game replays, so a typo stops at the exact move. FEN positions are checked field by field before they reach the board. The check reports the game status, material, a result that doesn’t match the final position, skipped side lines and missing header tags.
Key Features
Step Through Games
Move forward and back, jump to any move, flip the board.
Moves in Words
Captures, castling, en passant, promotion and mate spelled out.
FEN After Every Move
Copy any position from the game.
Tidy PGN
Headers and moves rewritten in standard form.
Notation Checks
Illegal moves, bad FEN fields and mismatched results.
Perfect for everyone
- Club players
- Chess coaches
- Streamers
- Puzzle setters and developers working with chess data
How to Use the Chess PGN & FEN Viewer
Paste a game copied from a chess site or database, a single FEN position, or open a .pgn file. The board, move list and checks update as you edit, so a typo in the moves shows up at the exact move where the game stops making sense.
Paste or Open
A PGN game, a FEN position, or a .pgn file.
Step Through
Use the arrows or click any move.
Read or Copy
Moves in words, FEN per move, or tidy PGN.
Check the Notation
Find illegal moves and wrong results.
Games, Replayed
Each row is a game or position of the kind people paste from databases, books and lessons, including a few that break. Each answer is this tool’s moves, positions, PGN or check, replayed move by move with full legality checking.
“[Event "Paris Opera"] [Site "Paris FRA"] [Date "1858.11.02"] [Round "?"] [White "Paul Morphy"] [Black "Duke Karl / Count Isouard"] [Result "1-0"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 4. dxe5 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 dxe5 6. Bc4 Nf6 7. Qb3 Qe7 8. Nc3 c6 9. Bg5 b5 10. Nxb5 cxb5 11. Bxb5+ Nbd7 12. O-O-O Rd8 13. Rxd7 Rxd7 14. Rd1 Qe6 15. Bxd7+ Nxd7 16. Qb8+ Nxb8 17. Rd8# 1-0”
“[White "Ada"] [Black "Nia"] [Result "1-0"] 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7# 1-0”
“8/8/8/4k3/8/4K3/4P3/8 w - - 0 1”
“1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 *”
“1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4#”
“1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 d5 3. exd6 e6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bc4 O-O 6. O-O”
“[SetUp "1"] [FEN "8/P7/8/8/8/8/k7/4K3 w - - 0 1"] 1. a8=Q *”
“k7/2Q5/1K6/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1”
“1. e4 e5 2. Ke3”
“rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP w KQkq - 0 1”
Reading Chess Notation
PGN games use standard algebraic notation for moves, and FEN describes a single position in one line of six fields. These are the parts people most often need to look up when reading or fixing a game.
Nf3
A piece letter and the square it moves to; pawns have no letter.
“What does N stand for?”
exd5
x marks a capture; a pawn capture names its starting file.
“What does exd5 mean?”
O-O and O-O-O
Castling kingside and queenside.
“Which is queenside?”
e8=Q
A pawn promoting, here to a queen.
“What does =Q mean?”
+ and #
Check and checkmate.
“What does # mean?”
FEN board field
Eight ranks from 8 to 1, digits for empty squares.
“What does 8 mean in a FEN rank?”
FEN castling field
KQkq for the castling rights left, or a dash.
“What does k mean?”
1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2
White wins, Black wins, or a draw; * means unfinished.
“What does * mean?”
The Seven Tag Roster
PGN games start with tags in square brackets. The standard asks for these seven in every game, in this order, so databases can sort and search them; the check lists any that are missing.
Event and Site
Where the game was played: the tournament and the city or website.
Date and Round
Dates as YYYY.MM.DD, with ?? for unknown parts, and the round number.
White and Black
The players’ names, usually surname first.
Result
1-0, 0-1, 1/2-1/2 or * for a game still going.
The Six Fields of a FEN
A FEN packs a whole position into one line of six fields separated by spaces. When a position won’t load, the error names the field at fault, so knowing what each holds makes the fix quick.
Piece Placement
Ranks 8 down to 1, split by slashes; capitals are White, lower case Black, digits count empty squares.
Side to Move
w for White or b for Black.
Castling Rights
Any of KQkq for the castling still possible, or a dash for none.
En Passant Square
The square a pawn just skipped over, such as e3, or a dash.
Halfmove Clock
Moves since the last capture or pawn move, for the fifty-move rule.
Fullmove Number
Starts at 1 and goes up after each Black move.
Working With PGN and FEN
Habits that keep chess files readable by every program, from online boards to databases and engines. PGN is forgiving to type but strict to parse, so small habits save a lot of re-entering later.
Copy the FEN
Paste a position into an engine or puzzle editor.
Keep Headers
Players and dates make games searchable later.
Use Standard Letters
K Q R B N in English notation; other languages differ.
Mark Unfinished Games
End movetext with * when there’s no result yet.
Check After Editing
A single wrong letter can make every later move illegal.
How a Game Ends
The check reports the state of the final position, which is how you can tell whether a game record’s result is believable. Resignations and agreed draws leave no trace on the board, so those results are taken from the header as written.
Checkmate
The king is attacked and has no legal way out; the side that delivered it wins.
Stalemate
The side to move has no legal move and isn’t in check, so the game is drawn.
Insufficient Material
Neither side can ever mate, such as king against king and bishop.
Threefold Repetition
The same position appears three times with the same side to move.
Fifty-Move Rule
Fifty moves each without a capture or pawn move lets a player claim a draw.
Who Uses a PGN Viewer
Anyone who has a game or position as text and wants to see it on a board without opening a full chess program. It also suits a phone or a borrowed computer where nothing can be installed.
Club Players
Replay a tournament game from its scoresheet.
Coaches
Explain a game move by move in plain words.
Puzzle Setters
Check a FEN before publishing a puzzle.
Streamers and Writers
Grab the position after a key move.
Developers
Debug PGN exported by a chess app or bot.
Notation Pitfalls
The slips that make a game fail to load, or load as something other than what was played. Most come from copying games by hand from a scoresheet or a book.
Ambiguous Moves
When two knights can reach a square, the move must say which.
Zero for O
Castling written 0-0 with zeros confuses some readers.
Wrong Side to Move
A FEN with the wrong side to move can be illegal.
Missing Counters
Some sites drop the last two FEN fields.
Result Typos
A result that contradicts checkmate misleads databases.