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12. April 2010, 18:13:44
AbigailII 
Subject: Re:
Nothingness: e4 is too vague what moved to E4?

A pawn. If in algebraic notation the piece that moved isn't indicated (either using a symbol, or a capital letter), a pawn was moved.

Now, you say "P-Q4" tells you exactly what was moved and where to, but I challenge that. "e4" in unambiguous. It's the white square, three square straight ahead of the starting square to the white King. But "P-Q4"? That could either be white moving to "d4" (the black square three square ahead of the starting square of the white Queen), or black moving to "d5" (the white square four squares ahead of the starting square of the white Queen).

Not to mention that descriptive notation allows moves like "KxP" or "Q-B4", which require knowledgement of the current position to know which move was actually performed. OTOH, using long algebraic notation, the move is always unambiguous, and never needs the current position to determine which piece moved from what square to what other square. "e2-e4" cannot be any other move than a pawn moving from "e2" (which is always the same square - regardless whose move it is) to "e4" (which is also always the same square - regardless whose move it is).

There's a reason descriptive notation only ever caught on in a few countries, and is even considered obsolete there. Virtual all modern chess literature from the past decades uses algebraic notation. Chess literature from many countries have done so for over 150 years.

15. April 2010, 15:32:53
Justaminute 
Subject: Re:
Algebraic chess books can be followed in any language if they use a symbol for the piece. P-Q4 doesn't tell you much if your language uses different letters for pawn and queen. The narrative can be a bit tricky of course!

15. April 2010, 18:38:48
AbigailII 
Subject: Re:
Justaminute: Only if you consider "any language" to be languages that use the Western alphabet. "b1-c3" isn't easy to understand if you're used Arabic or Chinese.

17. April 2010, 17:16:28
ColonelCrockett 
Subject: Re:
AbigailII: english descriptive notation was scrapped because it leads to ambiguity errors far too frequently ... modern algebraic notation was adopted by the international chess federation and most national federations.

17. April 2010, 17:49:27
AbigailII 
Subject: Re:
Modified by AbigailII (19. April 2010, 19:07:43)
ColonelCrockett: Hmmm, yes. That was what I said four posting ago.

19. April 2010, 17:45:35
ColonelCrockett 
Subject: Re:
AbigailII: hehe, apologies ... I'm was lazy the day i read the posts. ;)

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