see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessboard>, the problem assumes otherwise.

Chess notation in this problem is standard chess notation.
But the statement can be unclear because "forward side" of cube here means "nearest" to us (to 1st row).

I've changed "forward side" to "near side" and "backward side" to "far side". Does it make the statement better?

Maybe it is even better to describe "near side" as the one facing the first row, but the new version is also good enough.