Talk:Descriptive notation

needs improvement
I think this article needs to be improved. --Bubba73 03:32, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. Improvement is needed. Isopropyl 06:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Great! Can either of you suggest some specific improvements you'd like to see? --Malirath 23:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A couple of things are (1) I don't think the digram looks good, and (2) there are too many short paragraphs in the main section. Bubba73 (talk), 20:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I've worked on it, and I'm satisfied with it. Bubba73 (talk), 17:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Evergreen example
Well, I know this is en.wikipedia, not es.wikipedia, but I am not familiar with english descriptive notation (however, the article is about all descriptive variants). I will study it and I'll traslate it when I have time. Rjgodoy 06:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I translated it to English Descriptive 75.16.112.207 02:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Info for the "naming the pieces table"
Just A little Addition For the Naming The Pieces Table Icelandic For "Checkmate" is "Skák og mát Aevarr 16:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Chess names
There must be an error. The Japanese names are exactly as the English names, just written in Katakana. In other words, they are just a transcription of English words using their own symbols. It would be sad that the Japanese nouns are in the process of becoming nothing but English written using their own characters.
 * Why should it be otherwise? The Western chess pieces are not native to Japan. The Western king, rook, and bishop do exist in shogi, but naturally have different names. The Western queen and knight also appear in some native Japanese shogi variants, but again have different names. The Western pawn does not appear in any Japanese shogi variant. Double sharp (talk) 05:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

rearrangement
I rearranged the page to put that huge table of names in other languages at the end -- it's a huge thing to get past for the newcomer who really just wants to know what descriptive notation is. Also, this is the English language wikipedia and all the examples on the page use English notation, so it's sensible to give just the English piece names and their abbreviations first.

I decided that since the examples on the page almost all use N in preference to Kt, I changed the few Kt's to match. 91.105.24.49 22:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

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Hindi chess names/abbreviations?
I question the accuracy of the "Hindi" line of this table. The names of the pieces are given in Latin transcription, with abbreviations based on the first Latin letter of the transcription of each Hindi word. But since Hindi is customarily written using the Devanagari abugida, not the Latin alphabet, I would assume that the customary abbreviations for chess pieces would be based on the Devanagari written forms — or, if Latin abbreviations really are used, that they would more likely be the initials of the English names of the pieces, since English is commonly known and used by educated people throughout India. Can anyone who is familiar with chess notation in Hindi-speaking parts of India take a look at this and either fix it or confirm that it's correct as it stands? I'm also going to try to find a wikiproject page for India- or Hindi-related topics and ask about this there. Richwales (talk) 01:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

"Typically, the move will record only enough information to make the move unambiguous."
There is one extremely fine distinction that could be mentioned in the sense of completeness: that even the presence (or worse, the absence) of the "check" symbol may be considered enough to avoid ambiguity. Or not enough. Example: Suppose that White can play either B-QN5 or B-KN5, but only one (of course) of these gives check. Therefore, "B-N5+" is one of the moves and plain old "B-N5" is the other. You also see this in the early BxP in the common Danish Gambit -- the fact that it isn't BxP+ is supposed to tip you off that it's BxQNP and not BxKBP. Some annotators will use further defnition, whereas others don't bother. WHPratt (talk) 14:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * In fact check is usually indicated in descriptive for any move that results in check, even when it is not required to make the notation unambiguous. This makes the "typically only enough information to make the move unambmiguous" claim in the article not strictly correct, although I didn't think of that point until you brought up a related issue. Quale (talk) 05:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Quale. I looked at a few old descriptive-notation books, and the unvarying practice is to always indicate checks. Krakatoa (talk) 21:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It was indeed expected that a check would always be flagged in the descriptive notation. I was just commenting on the fact that some annotators felt that the presence or absence of the check symbol was sufficient to disambiguate similar-looking moves, while others didn't.  Someone reading an old game collection might be confused if not .aware of this. WHPratt (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * One more thing: as decisions regarding the rules of chess are usually eminently logical (I attribute this to this excellent taste of the people involved), I'm surprised that a potentially-ambiguous move will be recorded as, i.e., "KPxP". It seems to me that "PxBP" is much better due to the fact that a capturing pawn always changes its identity.  The KP was a KP when the move started, but it was itself a BP when the move ended.  The enemy BP, however, lived and died a BP.  I'd therefore recommend "PxBP" (or "PxQBP" or "PxKBP" if necessary) as preferable to "KPxP" -- the file of the captured pawn should prevail.  I'm being picky, but logical. WHPratt (talk) 03:09, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree a little with that. The notation 9algebraic and descriptive) is "from - to".  It is "from" a KP.  Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 03:39, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

One other use that might startle someone who reviews old chess literature may be when a rook who's all alone on his back rank moves "R-R1". As he cannot move to the R1 square upon which he now stands, he must be moving to the other R1, so it's unambiguous on a technicality. Indeed, the next move could indeed be "R-R1" again, if he's reacting to a new threat, or perhaps just wasting time. In some very old forms, the "1" square goes unnumbered, so one might see just "R-R". WHPratt (talk) 14:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

This is quite interesting, considering that check is generally considered insufficient to disambiguate the move in AN... Double sharp (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Hindi/Urdu
According to this page, the Hindi for Rook is "hāthī" and the Urdu for Bishop is "Haathi". Is it really correct that two languages that are so close use the same name for different pieces? 𝐨𝐱𝐲𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐵𝑈𝑇𝐴𝑍𝑂𝑁𝐸 ⓊⓉ 00:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. The Urdu may be wrong.  It was added recently by an anonymous editor to the chess piece article in an edit that broke the templated table we use.  I moved that edit to Template:chess names, but that may have been a mistake since I haven't verified the accuracy of the Urdu addition. Quale (talk) 04:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

About the use in the Americas
It was written that this notation was common in America and I replaced the term for United States, avoiding the ambiguity of the word that also describes the whole Continent of America. I believe that America was used meaning USA by the the autor of the sentence, but I can not say it is sure that he didn't mean it was also common in several of the American countries. As far as I searched, this information would not be correct. If, anyway, somebody has reliable sources that this notation was common in other countries of the continent I believe it would be better to mention the countries. 201.58.141.30 (talk) 05:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That may be OK, but I'm not sure, because File:Planilha_Eisenberg_e_Capablanca_.jpg is in DN by the Cuban Capablanca. Bubba73 You talkin' to me?


 * On second thought, that might not be by Capablanca because the writing is in English. Capa's opponent was born in the Ukraine but became a US citizen.) Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 06:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think I have seen descriptive notation in Spanish though. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 06:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * AFAIK English and Spanish are the only two languages in which descriptive notation was commonly used in modern times. That can probably be sourced reliably. Quale (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have one - I'll do it later. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, it has some mention of other countries, but I don't know what was used in South America, Central America, etc. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Chess Life use of DN
Does anyone know when Chess Life stopped using DN? I know they phased it out over several years, probably late 1970s - 1980s. They were probably the last major publication to use DN. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 19:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I was just looking at some old issues, and I can state that as late as December 1975, the magazine Chess Life & Review was still using descriptive notation exclusively. They did have a box in every issue explaining algebraic notation and encouraging its use, however.  Beyond that, I recall that Larry Evans' monthly column was the last holdout: he continued to discuss submissions in whatever form the reader happened to send.  (Evans himself argued for algebraic as being unambiguous and universal whenever someone asked.) WHPratt (talk) 14:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Continued use in some symmetrical contexts
Annoyingly I cannot remember where I've seen this, but I think I've still seen DN used in specially symmetrical contexts even when AN is used in the rest of the work. It's like the implicit use of DN in phrases like "rook on the seventh" (which in AN is the second rank if Black's doing it). One might then speak of the weakness at KB2 instead of that at f2/f7, or perhaps PxP listed in variations when it doesn't matter which pawn is doing the taking. Or perhaps in the ultimate sentence justifying the use of DN in such a scenario: "A fianchetto consists of the moves P-N3 and B-N2". Can anyone corroborate this hazy memory, though? Double sharp (talk) 18:44, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * You often see things like this as English language descriptions rather than formal Descriptive Notation, like your "rook on the seventh" example, or generic references to "rook's pawn" or "knight's pawn". Sometimes it makes for more elegant English. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:01, 23 November 2021 (UTC)