algebraic notation

"I offer this image of the notation in an 1806 text"

I did an entire page called the Forgotten Philidor on that particular notation from Philidor about 5 yrs. ago (only I had used an 1813 edtion).

wormrose, I agree there's a certain appeal to descriptive. When I play chess with people who don't know notation, I alway talk in descriptive notation because people understand it with almost no experience. But algebraic is absolute and exact. That's certainly hard to trump.

The 1806 edition is in the Silas W. Howland collection at Harvard University Library. It is one of many gems available as a PDF from Google Books, my principal library for some projects.

Interesting article.

M. Rubidoux grabbed at the end of his armrest and tightened his fingers around its sharp wooden corners. The air was thick and dry, which made the skin crack around his knuckles like white chalk canyons. He raised his other hand from his faded Dockers and traced the edge of the hewn table in front of him with the calloused pad of his thumb, trying to remember if he had sent a check to the gas & electric company. He couldn't.

On the other side of the table, M. Johansson, maybe ten years younger and much better dressed, tugged on his earlobe and chewed on the inside of his cheeks. He stared at the center of the table. After a few more weary moments, he pulled his hand away from his ear and moved his bishop from where it had sat, fianchettoed on the black square on his left side, to the center of the board, four squares in front of his king.

M. Rubidoux grunted, and pushed his tongue up behind his upper lip. He forgot about the electric & gas company. He swallowed, pulled his hand from the table up to rub his left eye, looked up at M. Johansson's face, looked back down at the board, and grabbed the knight that still sat in its starting position, between his queen and the rook nearest her. He moved the knight to the open space two squares in front of his bishop that had just been sitting next to the knight.

M. Johansson was prepared for this. He confidently moved the pawn from immediately in front of his queen to a space two squares forward. He let his elbow relax back on his chair. He looked up at the wall behind his opponent's shoulder and made a note to himself that he should leave for home in about an hour.

now, THAT is descriptive notation!

...and only a wee bit more terse than Greco's!

Well, algebraic notation does describe exactly where on the chess board the pieces are located. So algebraic notation makes sense. I also grew up with that by the way. Other systems are confusing to me. With algebraic notation you can read it even if it is written in another language than your own, because the letters and numbers are universal, e2-e4 for a pawn move is the same thing in English, Danish, German etc. Only the capital letters for the other pieces are different, but you can still understand the moves because of the letters and numbers that describes to which squares you move the pieces.

wow this was one of the better forums!!!

Now that I've gotten used to it, I agree with the general consensus that algebraic is the overall better way.  But I am glad that I learned descriptive first, because I go to a local used book store and cheaply buy some really good books written in descriptive and still read them with ease.  It's a bit like being bilingual.

I learned to play chess about 14 years ago when descriptive notation had been long out of vogue and I only use it out of necessity.  By nature of what I do, I've had to transcribe many, many games from descriptive (and from other types of ) notation to algebraic in order to create  PGN files. But I still approach the process with dread and usually put it off as long as possible (or, best scenario, entice a friend into doing it for me)  because somewhere along the way, either I'll get confused or I'll simply make a mistake that I won't realize until many moves later and I'll end up spending an hour or so finding and correcting my error(s).  I do envy anyone with a facility for descriptive notation.

Ziryab, my feelings are hurt.  I don't even know any Angles!

 There aren't any computer utilities for doing this? As a programmer, it seems like a pretty easy thing to code. I've been working on some chess programming for myself, and had been planning on writing something to load a game from algebraic notation. Once it's in the computer format it wouldn't be any harder to get it back out in descriptive.

it might be more difficult than would first appear, as there can be an occasional error and that would result in a 'hiccup' as the program might not handle it.

A human would make the 'adjustment' needed without really thinking about it much.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think it would be dead easy. Errors translate as errors, sure, but you'll have that problem in any translation task.

Edit: Looking into it I realized it's been a long time since I used descriptive notation and I'd forgotten some of it's quirkyness. So not dead easy, but still not that hard.

Write your translation program. Good luck!

A game fragment from Staunton:

WHITE. BLACK.
1. P. to K's 4th. 1. P. to K's 4th.
2. K's Kt. to B's 3d. 2. P. to K. B's 3d.
3. K's Kt. takes P. 3. Q. to K's 2d.
4. K. Kt. to B's 3d. (best) 4. P. to Q's 4th.
5. P. to Q's 3d. 5. P. takes K's P.
6. P. takes P. 6. Q. takes P. (ch.)
7. B. to K's 2d. 7. Q's B. to K. B's 4th.
8. Kt. to Q's 4th. 8. Q's Kt. to B's 3d.
9. Kt. takes B. 9. Q. takes Kt.
10. Castles. 10. B. to Q's 3d.
11. B. to Q's 3d.

The reason the USCF adopted algebraic notation in the seventies was because of the Fischer boom.  Unprecedented numbers of people worldwide were learning how to play, and the demand for books was incredible.  Publishers who were quick to capitalize on this opportunity ran into a severe roadblock--setting type in algebraic, run a number of copies, then change to descriptive notation (for the English-speaking crowd) for a second run.  This amounts to double printing and double proof-reading by publishers, which seems to have been acceptable when printing runs were just several thousand copies, but when the amount of copies went to the tens of thousands, it became too much.  The USCF decided to change to meet the demands of the publishers.  But me, I'm one of the diehards that still uses DN to record my games, though I've learned to talk AN to my notation-challenged friends.

Been an interesting discussion.  Some of us will continue to use descriptive and translate.  Sarah is still as obviously intelligent as when we first ran into each other several years ago on the USCF & other sites.  Love intelligent women! 

The only truly dumb statement in the whole discussion came out of the Netherlands. "Bit like imperial vs metric. You use rods per hogshead, we the normal stuff." 

Since we're looking at history, the youngster might find that descriptive and algebraic have nothing to do with the metric system.  Rather, after printed works became the norm, it was Phildor and the opposition. 

Also, he might want to learn that the metric system, far from being "normal stuff" only got trotted out big time during the French Revolution when, in a revolutionary burst of zeal, the National Assembly decreed that the prime meridian now passed through Paris [rather than Greenwich, England] and that all measurements would be in a grid formed in multiples of ten and spreading out from the center of Paris.  Didn't matter much until the grids started to split towns, farms, vineyards, businesses, historically cohesive territories and even the living rooms of several representatives of the Revolution.  So, it was decided that, illogical as the system was, there needed to be some geographic and other adjustments because the system simply didn't work properly.

And, the reason the English {only referred to as Imperial in England and usually for measuring alcohol} system held sway because THEY WON and Napoleon et al, for many generations following --- lost.  Metric has, in fact, been the official system in the United States since 1866.  Hasn't caught on fully yet and probably won't ever.  It's not because it isn't simple.  It just doesn't, historically, relate.  Except for the liquor and coffee industries, which decided they had money to waste by reconfiguring their containers, many businesses have just reprinted the labels with a line stating the metric equivalent of the English system content.  We use both every day.  But sorry, gallons, quarts and barrels (55 gallon drums actually) miles, yards and feet still hold sway here.

And, all in all, except  possibly in one small section of the Netherlands, unless one is measuring the size of the squares or the height of the Queen, metric has nothing to do with chess.

Are you allowed to use descriptive notation in US tournies now ?  Perhaps uscf no longer allows it like fide has done ? Its all Fischer ever used I believe. I doubt he's the only one.

Bit unfair to not quote the smiley I put after that...

 it was also a bit unfair to call it "dumb" by ignoring the fact that you made it  a simile by using the word "like" as opposed to saying it was related to or an integral  part of the metric/imperial divide.  

Still it was an interesting and informative post otherwise.

I also particularly enjoyed the "intelligent women" comments, who says chivalry is dead?