Descriptive notation
There a lot of old classical chess book and articles that is written Descriptive notation which is more more confusing if compared to the Algebraic notation and we shouldn't miss the opportunity of reading these great articles and book . so here is the explaining of the Descriptive Notation.
Descriptive notation is a
notation for recording
chess games, and at one time was the most popular notation in English- and Spanish-speaking countries (
Brace 1977:79–80) (
Sunnucks 1970:325). It was used in Europe until it was superseded by
algebraic notation, introduced by
Philipp Stamma
in 1737. Algebraic notation is more concise and requires less effort to
avoid ambiguity; however much older literature uses descriptive
notation. Descriptive notation exists in many language-based variants,
the most prevalent being
English descriptive notation and
Spanish descriptive notation.
Howard Staunton, in
The Chess-Player's Handbook
(1847), uses a cumbersome early version, viz., "P. to K's 4th." (later
written P-K4). Notably, in the back of the book he offers brief
descriptions of long algebraic notation, stating its adoption by "
Alexandre,
Jaenisch, the '
Handbuch,' and in Germany generally" (
Staunton 1847:500–502), and of
ICCF numeric notation, which he calls "Koch's Notation" (
Staunton 1847:502–3).
FIDE stopped recognizing descriptive notation in 1981 (
Golombek 1977:216).
Naming the pieces
With the exception of the knight, each piece is abbreviated to the
first letter of its name: K for king, Q for queen, R for rook, B for
bishop, P for pawn.
Knight begins with the same letter as king, so it is abbreviated to either
Kt (used in older chess literature) or
N. "N" is used in this article. In 1944
Chess Review received many letters debating the change from
Kt to
N (
Lawrence 2009:10).
Naming the board squares
Names of the
board squares in descriptive notation
In descriptive notation each square has two names, depending on
Black's or White's viewpoint. Each file is given a name corresponding
with the piece that occupies the first rank at the start of the game.
Thus the
queen's file is named "Q" and the
king's
file is named "K". Since there are two each of the remaining pieces on
the first rank, it is necessary to distinguish between them. The pieces
on the queen's side of the board (left for White, right for Black) are
named with respect to the queen i.e. "queen's rook", "queen's knight"
and "queen's bishop" and have the shortened names "QR", "QN" and "QB"
respectively. Similarly, the pieces on the king's side (right for White,
left for Black) are named with respect to the king i.e. "king's rook",
"king's knight" and "king's bishop" and have the shortened names "KR",
"KN" and "KB" respectively. The rank is given a number, ranging from 1
to 8, with rank 1 being closest to the player. This method of naming the
squares means that each square has one name from White's point of view
and another from Black's. For instance, the corner square nearest
White's left hand ("a1" in algebraic notation) is called "queen's rook
1" (QR1) by White and "queen's rook 8" (QR8) by Black.
Notation for moves
Each move is indicated by a sequence of characters which is
structured based on the move's type. Special indicators are added to the
end of the sequence if relevant.
- Move that is not a capture: A move without capture is represented by the piece's name, a hyphen and the square at the end of the move e.g. N-QB3 (knight to queen's bishop 3), P-QN4 (pawn to queen's knight 4). In some literature, if the move is to the first rank, the "1" is omitted.
- Capture:
A move with capture is represented by the piece's name, a cross (x) and
the destination square is identified by the name of the piece captured
e.g. QxN (queen captures knight).
- Castling: The notation 0-0 is used for castling kingside and 0-0-0 for castling queenside. The word "Castles" is sometimes used instead, particularly in older literature.
- Promotion: Parentheses are used to indicate promotion, with the piece resulting from the promotion in parentheses: P-R8(Q) or after a slash: P-R8/Q. Sometimes an equal sign is used: P-R8=Q.
Typically, the full designation for a piece or a file is shortened to
just the last part (indicating a type of piece) whenever this does not
produce ambiguity. For example, the move KP-K4 would always be written
P-K4 since only one pawn can move to K4 without capturing; the move
Q-QB4 would be written Q-B4 whenever Q-KB4 is not a legal move. A pawn
capturing a pawn may be shown as
PxP if it is the only one possible, or as BPxP if only one of the player's bishop's pawns can capture another pawn, or as
QBPxP, or
PxQBP, or other such variations.
Disambiguation of pieces using notations like QBP and KR becomes
awkward once they have moved away from their starting positions (or
starting files, for pawns) and is impossible for pieces created by
promotion (such as a second queen). So as an alternative, moves may also
be disambiguated by giving the starting position or the location of a
capture, delimited with parentheses or a slash, as
BxN/QB6, or
R(QR3)-Q3. Sometimes only the rank or file is indicated, as
R(6)xN.
When listing the moves of a game, first the move number is written,
then the move by White followed by the move by Black. If there's no
appropriate White move to use (e.g., if the moves are interrupted by
commentary) then an ellipsis
... is used in its place.
In Spanish descriptive notation the hyphen is not needed, as the rank serves as separator. So the Sicilian opening (
1. P-K4 P-QB4 in English) would be written
1. P4R P4AD. This is also the method used in French and Iberian countries (
Hooper & Whyld 1992:106).
Advantages
By identifying each square with reference to the player on move,
descriptive notation better reflects the symmetry of the game's starting
position ("both players opened with P-QB4 and planned to play B-KN2 as
soon as possible"), and because the pieces captured are named, it is
easy to skim over a game record and see which ones have been taken at
any particular point.
The maxim that "a pawn on the seventh is worth two on the fifth"
makes sense from both Black's perspective as well as White's
perspective.
English descriptive notation is also particular to chess, not to any other game.
Disadvantages
Confusion can arise because the squares are named differently. Errors
may be made when not realising that a move is ambiguous. In comparison,
abbreviated algebraic notation represents the same moves with fewer
characters, on average, and can avoid confusion since it always
represents the same square in the same way.
Example
The
Evergreen game (
Adolf Anderssen versus
Jean Dufresne, Berlin 1852) in English descriptive notation:
White: G. A. Anderssen
Black: J. Dufresne
Opening: Evans Gambit (
ECO C52)
1. P-K4 P-K4 2. N-KB3 N-QB3 3. B-B4 B-B4 4. P-QN4 BxNP 5. P-B3 B-R4
6. P-Q4 PxP 7. O-O P-Q6 8. Q-N3 Q-B3 9. P-K5 Q-N3 10. R-K1 KN-K2 11.
B-R3 P-N4 12. QxP R-QN1 13. Q-R4 B-N3 14. QN-Q2 B-N2? 15. N-K4 Q-B4? 16.
BxQP Q-R4 17. N-B6 ch! PxN 18. PxP R-N1 19. QR-Q1! QxN 20. RxN ch NxR
21. QxP ch! KxQ 22. B-B5 dbl ch K-K1 23. B-Q7 ch K-B1 24. BxN mate
Other examples occur in Lewis Carroll's
Through the Looking-Glass.
Source :- From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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