Idea for opening books: desired next move

The Informant symbols are common and cover some of these:

http://www.chessinformant.rs/system-of-signs/

Since this book is about openings that is exactly what it covers. Opening are moves to get to a playable MIDDLE GAME. Most are variations of each opening but he chooses not to show the best master use, beacuse the moves players will choose are not always the best moves. I see you like the PETROFF that one is in the book.

Moves not made: When white has a choice or three moves that he is contemplating, white will make another developing move while waiting for black to made his move. Depending on the move he has a choice of Rad1  or  RfE1 or PF4. He shows how to decide what move to make as a respond to blacks move.

By the way, I see you are in California and the library system is wondeful here. If your local library doesn't have the book, ask them to requested on the super search for you. They can requested and get it quickly.

This book is not to just read, it's best when each opening and variation is played on a board in your kitchen! Some of the opening can be played in your mind but they are instilled in your memory better when the pieces are moved. That's is what I found out and he also recomends.

I looked at your profile and to see some of your games but there aren't any that you have played. I also wondered how old you are? I am old 76 check my profile.

Bye for now

That's a good list, thanks. I'd never heard of many of those symbols, and other than square and triangle, I've certainly never seen many of them used. I imagine they combine symbols, like triangle and two empty squares meaning "with the idea of a bishop pair," which is what I would like to see, but they don't give any examples or rules for how to combine symbols, or an indication of intent for how those symbols were supposed to be used. Also, a system of unique symbols seems self-defeating to me: I can't even type a triangle symbol into this post, for example, much less a very special chess-specific symbol like two overlapping squares. That's why I suggested they use reserved words for common, important concepts that people can type on regular keyboards like "QS" (queen side), "KS" (king side), "trapped piece", "passed pawn", "zugzwang", and so on. That makes it easy for such a list to expand as people create ever more refined concepts for describing chess positions. That would also encourage creation of more detailed chess terms, which I feel is badly lacking in the field.

Forgot if I mentioned.  Chessbase has a neat feature "opening report" that gives the next few "ideal" type moves for each variation.  If course it's only as good as the games it's drawing from, but it does give stats off to the side e.g. win%, rating, even average game length.

And I do see what you're saying... it would be useful to know the idea or next few moves in some positions.  In others though I think it's very situational.  You're flexible and you have a few different ideas, but even those may not be played if the opponent does this or that.  That's what I meant by calling it just more moves to memorize.

Oh, and for the basic ideas, if you don't know Dereque Kelley youtube videos are nice.  Yeah it's just basic info, but even I'll sit though a video of an opening I don't play just to get a nicely presented introduction.

I describe myself as an "older guy", late middle age. I posted some of my games, so far only against computer, at random in various threads. See my most recent thread on the Staunton-Cochrane Sicilian in the Chess Openings forum on this site, for example. (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/staunton-cochrane-sicilian-my-quotsicilian-killerquot) I haven't had time to play any online games yet, partly because I'm just getting back into chess and I'm in the process of relearning my former repertoire of openings, which takes time. It would be too annoying to me to lose a game now just because I lacked a few extra days of study time to relearn even the basics of that opening. I'd rather wait a few weeks until I feel secure with my opening knowledge again. My manager at work noticed me looking at a book of chess puzzles on my down time at work, and challenged me to a game someday, so my preparation now is largely in anticipation of playing him OTB, maybe during Xmas vacation.

As for waiting moves, even that concept could and should be documented. You'll notice I commented on one such waiting move of mine with that regard in my Staunton-Cochrane Sicilian thread.

Thanks for that book reference. I'll request that through the library if I can.

Fair point.  I use some of them when making handwritten notes and then if I put my analysis into Chessbase, it supports many of them.  But you're right, a typical text editor won't support them.

There are two aims with the symbols: abbreviating common terms/phrases and hence reducing the amount of text in a shorthand manner; internationalisation in terms of being language independent.  I guess you're only trying to abbreviate in one language so QS for queenside, etc. makes sense.

Yes, I thought of the international aspect, but I don't see any way around the ever-increasing symbol complexity problem, which will eventually end up with some set of symbols with the complexity of Chinese, or else some additional complexity in the form of rules of how those symbols can be combined. English is the international language now, so it shouldn't be too painful for non-English speakers to learn a list of formal reserved words. That's a lot better than the old days, when Bobby Fischer had to learn Russian in order to keep up with the latest chess developments!