CHESS NOTATION

'Chess notation' is the term for systems that record the moves made during a game of chess and several have been developed. The term can also be used for systems that record the position of the pieces on a chess board.

Contents
Recording a game of chess
Recording the positions of pieces
Endgame classification
See also

Recording a game of chess


Chess move notation should describe the pieces involved, the end (and for clarity start) location, and any resulting effect (capture, check, mate etc).

★ 'Algebraic chess notation'. This is more compact than the old and obsolete descriptive chess notation and is the most widely used method for recording the moves of a game of chess. It has been in use in some regions since the early 1800s, and is less prone to error than the English descriptive system.

★ 'Long algebraic notation' or 'full algebraic notation'. This is a variant of algebraic chess notation where the moves include both the starting and ending position separated by a hyphen. Some computer programs use this method (see algebraic chess notation).

★ 'Portable Game Notation' (PGN). This is the most common of several notations that have emerged based upon algebraic chess notation, for recording chess games in a format suitable for computer processing.

★ 'ICCF numeric notation'. In international correspondence chess the use of algebraic notation may cause confusion, since different languages have different names for the pieces. The standard for transmitting moves in this form of chess is ICFF numeric notation.

★ 'Descriptive chess notation', 'English notation' or 'English descriptive notation'. Until the 1970s, at least in English-speaking countries, chess games were recorded and published using this notation. This is still used by a dwindling number of mainly older players, and by those who read old books.

'Steno-Chess'. This is another format suitable for computer processing. It sacrifices the ability to play through games (by a human) for conciseness which minimises the number of characters required to store a game.
When annotating chess games, question marks and exclamation marks are frequently used by annotators commenting on the game to label a move as bad or praise the move as a good one (see punctuation (chess)).

Recording the positions of pieces


In addition to recording games, there is also a notation for recording specific positions called the Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN). This is useful for adjourning a game to resume later or for conveying chess problem positions without a diagram. A position can also be recorded by listing the pieces and the square upon which they reside, e.g. ''White: Ke1, Rd3'', etc.

Endgame classification


There are also systems for classifying types of endgames. See Endgame#Endgame classification for more details.

See also



Punctuation (chess)

Chess opening theory table

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