Capture symbol

The lowercase letter x shows that a move captures an opposing piece. In algebraic notation, the move-writing system built from piece letters and square names, x appears immediately before the destination square. Bxe5 means that a bishop captures something on e5.

For a pawn capture, the pawn's starting file, its lettered vertical column, is written first: exd5 means that the pawn from the e-file captures on d5. The x does not identify the captured piece; that information comes from the position.

Other information follows it. In the standard form, a capture that gives check ends in +, and one that gives mate ends in #. If the move also includes promotion, the new piece is written after the square, as in exd8=Q.

Standard Portable Game Notation (PGN), the plain-text game format, requires x. A handwritten International Chess Federation (FIDE) scoresheet, the form used to record moves, may omit the capture mark, but keeping it removes ambiguity and helps software read the move correctly.