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Descriptive chess notation, or just descriptive notation is a notation for recording chess games, and at one time was the most popular notation for doing so. It has been superseded by abbreviated algebraic notation, but is still important for understanding older chess books. Descriptive notation exists in many language-based variants, the most prevalent being English descriptive notation and Spanish descriptive notation.
Naming the pieces Each piece's name in descriptive notation is based on its initial. English speaking players use: Spanish speakers use: Naming squares on the board
Notation for moves Each move of a piece is indicated by a sequence of characters. Castling has its own sequence of characters and special indicators are added to the end of the sequence if relevant. Typically, the move will record only enough information to make the move unambiguous. 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. Another method in making the move unambiguous, the location of a capture or the starting point of a move may also be shown, delimited with parentheses or a slash, as BxN/QB6, or R(R3)-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 ellipses ... 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. 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-K4 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. Disadvantages Confusion can arise because the squares are named differently. Errors may be made when not realizing 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. | ||||||||||
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