So I started with this book ' complete chess strategy' by ludek pachman. Some of the chess notations are different. For ex, it has notations like P-N3 which I couldn't follow. Did they use different chess notations before? Is there a key to deciphering them? I did a simple Google search but couldn't find any resource for understanding these notations. Please help!
Search for Descriptive notation in chess and you'll found it.
Here a converter: http://www.abdelnauer.de/js/notation.htm (EDIT: out of order)
it is descriptive notation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_notation
it is harder than the traditional chinese lol
jokes aside you need some time to understand it
This is the Anglo-Saxon descriptive notation.
P = pawn, N = knight, B = Bishop, R = rook, Q = queen, K = king
When ambiguity then KN = king's knight, KR = king's rook, KB = king's bishop, QN = queen's knight, QB = queen's bishop, QR = queen's rook
files are designated by the piece that stands there in the starting position
a = QR b = QN, c = QB, d = Q, e = K, f = KB, g = KN, h = KR
Rows are designated from 1 to 8 from the perspective of that player.
For white 1 = 1, 2 = 2 3 = 3, ... 8 = 8
For black 8 = 1, 7 = 2, 6 = 2, ... 1 = 8
So 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6
1 P-K4 P-K4 2 N-KB3 N-QB3 2 B-N5 P-QR3
Once upon a time I concocted the following. Inspired by Donner‘s weird story I published 2014 a game of mine in Donner‘s distorted style to „encrypt“ it by means of descriptive notation. Donner claimed that the US invented this type of notation that no one can follow their games.
The first move of the Whites:
The Queen's Pawn advances two Squares
The first move of the Blacks:
The King's Knight jumps to the King's Bishop's Third Square
The second move of the Whites:
The Queen's Knight jumps to the Queen's Bishop's Third Square
The second move of the Blacks:
The King's Knight Pawn advances one Square
The third move of the Whites:
The King's Pawn advances two Squares
The third move of the Blacks:
The Queen Pawn advances one Square
The fourth move of the Whites:
The King's Bishop's Pawn advances two Squares
The fourth move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the King's Knight's second Square
The fifth move of the Whites:
The King's Knight jumps to the King's Bishop's third Square
The fifth move of the Blacks:
The Queen's Bishop's Pawn advances two Squares
The sixth move of the Whites:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the fifth Square of the Queen's Knight announcing echec.
The sixth move of the Blacks:
The Queen's Bishop positions himself on the Queen's second Square
The seventh move of the Whites:
The King's Pawn advances one Square
The seventh move of the Blacks:
The King's Knight jumps to the King's Knight fifth Square
The eight move of the Whites:
The King's Pawn advances one Square
The eight move of the Blacks:
The King Bishop's Pawn captures the White Pawn
The nineth move of the Whites:
The King's Knight jumps to the King's Knight fifth Square
The nineth move of the Blacks:
The Queen's Bishop captures the Black Bishop
The tenth move of the Whites:
The King's Knight captures the Black King's Pawn
The tenth move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop captures the Black Pawn
The eleventh move of the Whites:
The King's Knight captures the Black Queen
The eleventh move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the King Bishop's seventh square announcig echec.
The twelfth move of the Whites:
The King occupies the Queen's second Square
The twelfth move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the King's sixth square announcig echec.
The thirteenth move of the Whites:
The King occupies the King's first Square
The thirteenth move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the King Bishop's seventh square announcig echec
The fourteenth move of the Whites:
The King occupies the Queen's second Square
The fourteenth move of the Blacks:
The King's Bishop positions himself on the King's sixth square announcig echec.
These moves having thus been repeated several times, an impasse was recorded.
By the way, thirty years ago I translated Bobby Fischer‘s game against Gligoric from his 60 memorable games in descriptive notation. Done on an Amiga 500.
A pain, it still gives me knightmares...
@tpr thanks so much for the reader's digest version of it. 🙏
@Sarg0n 😱 60 games in this notation! It will take me a day to decipher the post you had written above btw :)
@tpr
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6
1 P-K4 P-K4 2 N-KB3 N-QB3 2 B-N5 P-QR3
or
1 P-K4 P-K4 2 N-KB3 N-QB3 2 B-QN5 P-QR3
If it continued with
4 Ba4 Nge7
Is the correct notation
4 B-R4 KN-K2
or
4 B-QR4 KN-K2
In Alekhine's 2 books of his best games, the knights are notated as "Kt," which I've never seen elsewhere. It becomes a headache when you see "7. K Kt-K 2, K-Kt 1"
English descriptive is tricky and cumbersome to look at.
But, speaking of— I notate kinda weird, maybe someone will appreciate it, haha...
https://imgur.com/a/MGZKSgX
I use French and Hebrew, so I can notate from both sides of the page. This was a fun game if you can figure it out 😅
While the piece game history dependency might be a complication, I think some simplifying thinking aspect of it have been lost with the disembodied algebraic notation. hypothesis. why not keep the pawn starting position piece correspondence and the player perspective? The pawns are not likely to travel laterally as much, so knowing it has makes the notation informative.
but for communication efficiency I guess having a blind notation system, might be better. just more deciphering to do until it has become internalized.
i am proficient in none of these..... just finding some good aspects about both. (what i gathered from seeing some).
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