From: marino@dxcern.cern.ch (Massimo Marino)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Info on "new" chess notation
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:57:08 GMT
Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics

clare@bissun.kodak.com (Bill Clare) in message: <1992Nov4.145407.6211@pixel.kodak.com> writest:

> I am familiar with old chess notation; e.g. P-K4, KBxN, O-O, etc.  I also
> understand that basically the new chess notation maps the entire board into
> an 8x8 grid where one column is indexed a-h and another is indexed 1-8.

My only notation (and all bokks I had at hand), since I was a child (I am 31
no) was this 'new' notation based on squares as letter-number.
Questions are:

>1) What exactly is the orientation (e.g. which square is a1, and which is h8)

That's easy, a1 is Queen Rock White, h8 is King Rock Black, the others follow
natutally if you place in front of the chessboard having White. Easier... have a look at the diagram:

   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 8 | r | n | b | q | k | b | n | r |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 7 | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p |      Black side
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 6 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 5 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |      columns are labelled with letters,
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+      rows with numbers
 4 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 3 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 2 | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |      White side
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 1 | R | N | B | Q | K | B | N | R |
   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
     a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h

> 2) I see shorthand referred to (for example, I have seen moves referred to
   as d4)

You can give move referring to square of departure, square of arrival: e.g. 

g1-f3  --> king knight goes to f3. This assure not ambiguous move but it is not
that easy if you have to read a game. More common (international) is naming
pieces as K=king, Q=queen, B=bishop, R=rock, N=knight, P=pawn and giving 
arrival square. In the previous example g1-f3 = Nf3. In cas of ambiguous moves
e.g. two knigths can reach f3 then you give N(departure column)f3 if the two
knights are on different columns, N(row number)f3 if on same column. Coming
to your questio, when the move is simply letter-number the assumption is that 
ia a pawn move: d4 is white queen pawn advancing two squars (from d2 to d4).

> 3) How are captures, castles, e.p., advancing a pawn to the eigth rank, etc.
   noted?

captures are notated using a cross 'x', e.g. Bxd6 is a bishop that captures
the piece in d6. (for other pieces, if ambiguous move you indicate also either
the column, or the row of departure (letter or number which one is applicable)

BTW international notation use shapes for pieces (a small figure of the real piece) and, IMO, it is far easy to look at a glance a lot of moves in a single
shot (in books for example).

Hope this help, regards
Max
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