A Note on the Chess Notation Used

When discussing the many different chess openings and the principles behind them, we have gone through the moves made using the descriptive method of chess notation. There are those who might not be familiar with descriptive chess notation and would wonder what does P - K4 or a Knight at B3 would mean. We would like to make this note in order to clarify why this method of recording chess moves was preferred over today's standard abbreviated algebraic notation, which has now become a standard when recording chess games.

We may be familiar that the descriptive notation was once a very popular method of recording chess moves but has been superceded by readily compact abbreviated algebraic method of notation. Though we do recognize that the algebraic method is indeed a compact way of representing chess moves without making cumbersome notes, and that it is indeed less confusing since that method of notation is quite precise, we chose the descriptive chess notation for a number of reasons.

First of all is that with the descriptive chess notation, beginners will easily understand the starting position's symmetry in a game of chess. Putting the beginners in mind, they would easily grasp which piece did what since this type of notation immediately specifies which piece moved. For instance, algebraic notation will have it as e4 e5 (i.e. short method) or e2-e4 e7-e5 whereas a descriptive notation will have it as P - K4, P - K4 (immediately mentioning which piece moved and from where).

Another advantage that can obviously be drawn from the descriptive notation is that beginners can easily skip and skim through some of the material and review certain moves rather quickly. This is so since they can easily tell which piece has been taken out of play and which ones are still on the board using this said notation.

Nevertheless, we also acknowledge that the descriptive notation does have its weaknesses and disadvantages. One disadvantage we would like to point out is that players may arrive at different conclusions or have confusions as they play out the openings or the replies to them. Here is the strength of the algebraic method of notation in that it uses fewer characters and that there is rarely any confusion since the way the moves are represented is in a standard view.

We therefore would like to recommend that after beginners have already become rather familiar with how the pieces correlate one to another on the board that they move on to use the algebraic method, since it would only require a few minor adjustments to the notation.

We feel that starting with a descriptive notation, beginners will have a quick feel for the game and its chess openings. After being familiar with the basics, we urge beginners to learn today's standard algebraic notation.