Letter #03 -  2002

Sub:    Notation system
Date:   1/15/02 8:33:03 AM  MST
From:  Adrian Salas
To:      service@chess-poster.com

Receive our warmest greetings.

We have just navigated through your extraordinary site trying to find the notation system of the pieces moves in a game.

The motive of this e-mail, to ask you to be kind and help us for our six years old son likes Chess too much and we live and work in a remote area of the Gulf of Mexico where there is not any learning center.

You all have our sincere regards,
Adrian Salas and Ma. Esther Martinez
 

Dear viewer,

The most common system of notation is the “Descriptive” one but the “Algebraic” system is also very popular because of its precision.

In the Descriptive system the initial position of the white and black pieces serves to name the different squares on the board. In this way, for each player, the squares of the first horizontal row from left to right are denominated in the following manner:

Descriptive System:

QR1  _____  Queen Rook one
QN1  _____  Queen Knight one
QB1  _____  Queen Bishop one
Q1    _____  Queen one
K1    _____  King one
KB1  _____  King Bishop one
KN1  _____  King Knight one
KR1  _____  King Rook one

On fig. 1, white pieces start the game with P-K4 (Pawn to King four) and the black pieces answer with P-QB4 (Pawn to Queen Bishop four).

Algebraic System:

The Algebraic system consists of a unique numeration for all the squares on the Chessboard.

The first horizontal row of the white pieces is used for the denomination of all columns. The squares of such row are named from left to right with the letter: a, b, c, d, e, f, g and h. The vertical columns have squares numbered from one to eight.

On fig. 2, the first move made by white is Pd4* (Pawn to d4) and the black answer is Nf6 (Knight to f6). Computer Chess programs interpret it as d2-d4 and g8-f6.
 

* As a general rule and widely accepted by most professional Chess players, the Pawn move is written with two digits only: d4, omitting the letter "P" from Pawn.

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