Chess notation puzzle - Algebraic notation in several languages

Here is the quote again:

“For the first letter of the name of the pieces, each player is free to use the first letter of the name which is commonly used in his country. Examples: F=fou (French for bishop), L=loper (Dutch for bishop). In printed periodicals, the use of figurines for the pieces is recommended.” (Appendix C.3 Algebraic Notation; Fide Handbook).

Thus, people that have to interpret the moves written on a score sheet, i.e. referees, tournament organizers and some other support during a tournament or league, have to be fine with whatever language then.

The aim of this article is to, first, explain how to decipher a score sheet with a notation language that you aren’t familiar with and, secondly, show you some examples of score sheets using languages different than English to let you decipher what’s happening in the game. Who knows, maybe you’ll even be able to find out what language has been used? If you are lucky, I’ve chosen a notation in a language that you yourself know or use. I’ll give two examples though, so that there are, hopefully, enough examples to make you work a little on a puzzle.

Deciphering any algebraic notation on a score sheet

The algebraic notation asks players to use the letters and numbers that one already uses in English for the single squares (see Appendix C. Algebraic notation, Fide Handbook). We call this scripture Latin alphabet, and the numbers are called Arabic numerals. If you are used to write with these writing systems due to English, German, Spanish or many other languages, many of them having been dragged from Europe to big parts of the rest of the world due to colonialism, then you’ll be fine with understanding these “names” for the squares. And even if these are not writing systems that you are used to, at least it’s uniform for score sheets. In other words, it’s only the letter used for a piece that can change between different languages. Let’s repeat the letters used for pieces in English really quickly. For doing so, we can check out the Fide Handbook again:

C.2 Each piece is indicated by the first letter, a capital letter, of its name. Example: K=king, Q=queen, R=rook, B=bishop, N=knight. (In the case of the knight, for the sake of convenience, N is used.) (Fide Handbook, Appendix C)

This is the way in which you see the notation used on many online chess platforms such as Lichess. If you check out the Fide Handbook in another language, you’ll be able to find out the notation for that other language. That’s a great trick to find the notation for a certain language out, e.g. in case you want to learn the pieces (or the notation for the pieces) in a certain language.

At this point, we could check out the Fide Handbook in all languages that we can find, create a huge list of piece names and their letters in a lot of languages and always control for those letters. In theory, this should work. However, that’s not what I was going for when starting this article.

If we assume that every chess match starts with the same starting position, a match can only start with a certain set of moves. If the first move is done by a piece, that must be a knight. If it’s a move by something that didn’t get their own letter, it’s a pawn. After starting with pawn moves, there is a chance of certain other pieces being able to move. Checking what piece can move to a certain square can help to find out, what piece was talked about in that notation. There are only 5 pieces with their own letter in total and for every piece, there are different rules of how they can move. This way, you can decipher what letter stands for which piece. You don’t even have to know the language that has been used. This way, you don’t have to guess the correct language to check a huge table. Now, that you are sure what letter stands for which piece, however, you can double check with online resources or whatever else you have at hand. There are huge notation tables for many languages online. You can also check if pages like Wikipedia (and changing the language for an article of a piece) might help. This way, you might even be able to find out what language has been used.

Deciphering an example

Before we get to some puzzles, let’s do an example together. You can use a chess board or a virtual chess board to follow the moves to make this task easier. If you can make all the moves in your head, go for it!

1. d4 d5 > Pawns are moving, both are freeing their bishops, queens and kings to be able to move besides their knights.
2. Lf4 c5 > Neither queen, king nor knight can move to the square f4. This “L” must be a bishop.
3. c3 Sf6 > Only a knight can move to the square f6. “S” must be the letter for the knight.
4. e3 Sc6 > There is a knight again.
5. Ld3 e6 > Hello bishop, we know you already!
6. Sd2 Le7
7. Sgf3 Sh5
8. Lg3 Sxg3
9. hxg3 h6
10. De2 c4 > There is a new one! Now, a bishop, a queen and a king could move to the square e2. We can out rule the bishop as we have already established the letter “L” for bishops. At this point, we can’t be sure if “D” is a king or a queen. We have to go forward to find more moves of other pieces.
11. Lc2 b5 > Yes, we were right, the bishop was staying at d3, so that the bishop could move to c2 during this move.
12. b3 Ld7
13. a4 b4
14. bxc4 bxc3
15. Sb1 dxc4
16. Dxc4 Tc8 > Let’s start with White’s move. The piece from move 10 is moving again. Between queen and king, only the queen can move several squares along the diagonal during one move. “D” must be the letter for the queen then! Now, what about Black’s move? We are only missing the king and the rook. Only a rook can move to the square c8. “T” must be the letter for the rook. Only one piece missing now!
17. De2 Sb4
18. Se5 0-0 > There was a king moving but castling gets an internationally uniform sign. That’s not exactly helping but now we know that the king’s position has been changed.
19. Sa3 Lc6
20. Sxc6 Txc6
21. f4 Dd5
22. Th5 Sxc2+
23. Sxc2 De4
24. Tb1 Ta6
25. a5 Td6
26. Te5 Dg6
27. Tb7 Dxg3+
28. Df2 Dxf2+
29. Kxf2 Lf6 > Finally, a new piece! The White king hasn’t castled yet and is free to move to f2. In this case, the king is even the only one being able to take the queen on the square f2. The “k” must be the letter for the king (just as in English).

At this point, we can stop the game and not look at the rest of the moves as we have deciphered all pieces. To make sure that you are right, you could also go for more moves or even the whole game. If you are interested in what game this was, I’ll comment this game in a later article, stay tuned!

Let’s make a list:
L – Bishop
S – Knight
D – Queen
T – Rook
K – King

You get extra points if you find out what language has been used. But as you see, it’s not necessary to know what language has been used as you just need to be able to find the code!

Puzzles for you!

Finally, it’s time for you to decipher some puzzles. For every example, I’m just giving you the number of moves starting at the starting position that are needed to find the answer.

Puzzle 1

1. d4 Kf6
2. c4 g6
3. Kc3 d5
4. cxd5 Kxd5
5. e4 Kxc3
6. bxc3 Cg7
7. Kf3 c5
8. Cb5+ Cd7
9. Cxd7+ Фxd7
10. O-O O-O
11. Ce3 cxd4
12. cxd4 Kc6
13. d5 Cxa1
14. Фxa1 Kd8
15. Ch6 f6
16. Cxf8 Kpxf8
17. Td1 e5
...

Could you decipher what letter stands for which piece? Could you find out what language was used? And could you find out what game this is from?

Puzzle 2

1. e4 d6
2. Cf3 Cf6
3. c3 Cxe4
4. Da4+ Cc6
5. Dxe4 Ad7
6. d4 h6
7. Ch4 Tg8
8. Dh7 e5
9. Cf3 Ce7
10. De4 Ac6
11. Dc2 Cg6
12. Ae2 e4
13. Cfd2 Dg5
14. 0-0 Cf4
15. g3 Cxe2+
16. Rh1 Dh5

Could you decipher what letter stands for which piece? Could you find out what language was used?

Puzzle 3

Now it’s your turn! Take a chess match and choose the notation for some language and try to recreate the score sheet for that game in that language!

References

International Chess Federation (2023): “Fide laws of chess” in: Fide Handbook, https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012023.