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Archive 1 |
Shouldn't this be left for the articles on algebraic notation written in the international wiki's? I don't see the point in telling someone the Russian algebraic notation in the English article, since that should be in the article on ru.wikipedia.org or wherever. -- Malathion 05:17, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Sometimes English speakers read chess books or articles in other languages, and it helps to know what the abbreviations are. I think it should be restored. I got that list from the US Chess Federation rule book, so they saw fit to include it.
-- Bubba73 05:49, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
It is not a rare occurance that an English speaker has or reads chess books or magazines that are written in a language he doesn't understand. (I have some.) But if he knows the abbreviations of the pieces he can follow the moves of the game or analysis, even if he can't read the text. Readers of other languages probably know what their abbreviations of the pieces are, but an English speaker who doesn't read the other language (and therefore doesn't know the words for the pieces in that language) can read the moves - if he knows their abbreviations in that language. -- Bubba73 14:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
Occasionally I have seen an N suffix used after certain moves (e.g. axb5N), but I have been unable to find any information as to what this suffix means. Does anyone have any ideas? TCrossland 13:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The article says "Beginning in the 1970s, the abbreviated algebraic notation eventually came to replace descriptive chess notation, " That is in English language publications, right? Didn't other languages already use AN? Bubba73 (talk), 18:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I stopped being interested in chess after the descriptive notation went out and cold,calculating machine-friendly algebraic notation came in. 10010100 10001001 00100100 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.85.15.86 ( talk • contribs).
Yes, of course it is true that algebraic was the standard notation in many other languages long before the 1970s. Edward Lasker used algebraic notation when he first published his book Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership in 1918; he was criticized for this, although according to Lasker algebraic was already the standard in "most other countries" (source: Edward Lasker, Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters).
does anyone know how in maltese both queen and king have the same symbol? -- Lucinos 09:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I created a new template, Template:chess notation, to alleviate the need for sentences such as the following: "The French Defense begins with the following moves (see algebraic chess notation): 1.e4 e6 etc." The parenthetical comment interrupts the flow of the sentence, and also does not help readers who happen to skim the article and skip that sentence. Some articles that contain chess notation do not attempt to explain what it is. This new template will solve all that.
When you type {{chess notation}} at the top of an article (or anywhere else), the following message appears:
Of course, feel free to edit the template, as long as you maintain the link to this article. Correspondingly, it is critically important to maintain the high quality of this article because so many other articles link to it. YechielMan 21:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the new Endgame classification section belongs in this article, as it is not algebraic notation. 66.188.102.79 07:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I've never seen Kt used in algebraic chess notation, only N. What's the source? -- Jao 12:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Chess notation duplicate topic?
ChessCreator (
talk) 01:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Forget that.
ChessCreator (
talk)
01:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
All external links to appendix E of the FIDE Handbook are now broken. I can't find the appendices anywhere on the official website! What has happened? -- Jao ( talk) 18:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
What does the name of pieces have to do with algebraic chess notation? Also, shouldn't the english Wikipedia use english except for articles about other languages? It's not like we normally include translations of content within the article. 68.42.72.226 ( talk) 10:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is about Algebraic notation in chess and I think the correct naming would be Algebraic notation (chess). Can anyone provide a reliable source with the name Algebraic chess notation because from a google search it appears that the name while widely used, most likely had wikipedia as a source. SunCreator ( talk) 01:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
In "Pawn Promotion," it is written, "(The "=" sign is in fact used to represent the offer of a draw.)" I am removing that sentence. If anyone finds a source for that and adds it back in, great. But I'm unaware of that ever having been true in any form of Algebraic. (Though I'm very willing to be corrected by properly verified source material.) 98.228.92.5 ( talk) 17:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
What's described in this article is "Standard Algebraic Notation", at least according to Chess notation. Also included in that entry are more sub-types, such as Minimal Algebraic Notation (MAN), which is used by the New York Times. TerrificBowler ( talk) 03:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
"Horizontal files"?! "Vertical ranks"?! Never heard it described that way. (I thought I was reading misprints!) At the least, it is an inherently confusing way to describe. (The files go vertical. But they are stacked horizontally. I had to figure out what was being said. This is no way to explain to a beginner trying to learn.) Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 00:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Under subsection Long algebraic notation, this sentence was supported using a ref to a 1977 book by Golombek:
Long algebraic notation was no longer recognized by FIDE as of 1981.
(To quote Commander Kruge from The Search for Spock, "How can that be?" Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 10:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
PGN is not really a similar notation - it uses algebraic notation. I don't think it belongs in the "similar notation" section. It does belong somewhere, but I don't know where. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm wondering about the exact format of AN. Is there a space after the period and before the move: 1. e4 versus 1.e4? I prefer a space. What about a black move? I've seen 1...c5, 1. ...c5, 1. ... c5, and 1 ... c5. Is there a preference or standard? Bubba73 (talk), 04:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Two issues:
188.169.229.30 ( talk) 01:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Could someone add notes on the history of algebraic notation? Who suggested the format? When was it first used? When did FIDE make it mandatory? Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.82.209 ( talk) 00:09, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
Somewhere we should treat the other notation elements someone is likely to encounter when reading about chess:
E.g. from http://misc.traveller.com/chess/beginner/notation/notation.html
It isn't clear that the algebraic notation page is the right place. Jeff 18:56 Nov 4, 2002 (UTC)
! a good move !! an excellent move ? a mistake ?? a blunder
These are also employed in descriptive notation, which was dominant in England and the United States from its early development in the mid-nineteenth century (later than algebraic) until the 1980s. Hence, Algebraic chess notation is not clearly the right place, although it is as logical as any other.
JStripes 00:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Should there also be mention of the notation Informator uses, which is algebraic, but with piece symbols instead of letter?-- Gangster Octopus 23:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
While it's true that in algebraic notation one almost never needs a symbol for the pawn, occasionally it does arise, e.g. in writing analysis of variations one may want to write "P(either)xe5" or even "PxP" to mean the same continuation would follow. Do professional chess writers ever use P like this or is it just me? 91.107.143.2 ( talk) 19:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Next to the entry on compensation ("∞/= or =/∞ compensation for material deficit") somebody added the html comment "Which way round does this work?". I'm not sure I understand the question; the symbol means that the side with less material has compensation for it (it tends to imply adequate compensation). You can see which side is the one with more material and which is the one with compensation for it by looking at the position. Could somebody elaborate on what the problem is? Maybe the poster assumes one of the given signs means "White has compensation" and the other "Black has compensation" (not the case as far as I know; it's just that some publications use one, some the other)? -- Camembert 13:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Correct--New In Chess puts the = on bottom, Informant on top. -- silverpie 17:00, 22 March 2006 (USA-EST)
∞/= and =/∞ mean two different things! White is always on top, Black is always on bottom, so ∞/= means that it's equal even though White is down material, because White has some intangible (positional) advantage. =/∞ means that Black is down material, but has some positional advantage. 50.154.29.13 ( talk) 18:59, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
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“Algebraic notation” isn’t a “misnomer” (or a mistake) just because it isn’t related to the math department known as “algebra”. And it is in fact related to a wider meaning of algebra. The term algebra in my dictionary is defined as a “system of calculation that substitutes letters for numbers” (which certainly fits chess) or “any set or expression that uses only numbers and letters”, which easily fits algebraic notation, where file letters “a” through “h” are letters substituted for numbers 1 through 8. In fact the word “algebra” derives from the Arabic word that means “mending something that’s broken”, so you could say that the “algebra math department” itself is a misnomer. But we don’t. If you wanted to you could say that chess is full of misnomers, including the word “King”, “Queen” … (etc.) But they’re not, not really. So I removed the unsourced suggestion from the article. Handthrown ( talk) 12:51, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
I removed Krabbé's joke 0-0-0-0 because it's off topic for this article. It doesn't inform the reader anything useful about AN. Places it does belong: castling, Tim Krabbé, and joke chess problem. Quale ( talk) 03:04, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't know how to edit the "chess names" table referenced in this article.
It contains an error: in Georgian, the King and the Knight are shown as having the same abbreviation. If a chess game given in Georgian algebraic notion on one person's Facebook page is to be believed, it's the Knight that gets a two character symbol: მხ (for Mkh). Quadibloc ( talk) 11:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
I found out it was something called a "template", and so I have found out how to make the required correction. Quadibloc ( talk) 12:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Despite an anon's repeated attempts to "correct a fact", Stamma did use the letter of the initial file of the piece (a = QR, b = QN, etc.) rather than the first letter of the piece name. Apparently Stamma used lower case letters in his openings and upper case letters in his problems, and HJR Murray wrote that many of Stamma's early imitators followed suit. Other particulars: Stamma spaced the letters (p e 4), used a cross for check, and had no symbols for captures or castling. (A History of Chess, p. 848) Quale ( talk) 04:05, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
The entry at Figurine/Chess contains an ellipsis. I assume that should be an empty text. (Technically, an NBSP or a literal space would be adequate.) As it currently stands (with the ellipsis), one might understand that the word Chess in the language Figurine, is written as "...", which obviously is not the intention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.37.71 ( talk) 18:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
@ Ihardlythinkso: Regarding this revert...in most cases, thin spaces aren't needed in article text, and in the spirit of keep markup simple, I've been removing them. Numeric HTML entities are in general confusing to editors, and so I've been replacing them with actual characters, or in the case of whitespace, named HTML entities. MOS:NBSP suggests that for this application, {{thinsp}} or are preferred to the numeric entity. In my browser, though, having the thin space there actually makes the closing double quote mark look uncomfortably and asymmetrically far from the #. Given the wide variety of fonts and platforms people are viewing articles on, I think it's better to let the browser decide how to space characters rather than trying to make them pixel-perfect on one's own screen. If a given combination doesn't look right, a good long-term fix is to report that to the developer of the rendering engine or font. -- Beland ( talk) 02:02, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Just to let y'all know, at VIcipaedia's page on this, we have a really nice, much more complete table for piece names in various languages, if someone wants to copy it.-- Ioshus (talk) 19:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I wonder how I can add an entry in the table for another language. Suhemin ( talk) 08:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
For "Spanish", in this day and age, it would be better to see "Castilian" at least in parentheses under the other language name. Throughout Latin America it is known as Spanish, but in modern Spain there are four Spanish languages: Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Basque, and Galician. Franco has long been deceased. Although it was his desire for there to be only one language called "Spanish", modern Spain recognizes all four as Spanish languages. To just write Spanish is now politically incorrect for Europeans, and the USA should start to catch on. Shrommer ( talk) 14:59, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
The rows from Hindi down to Hausa are out of order, but there doesn't seem to be a way to edit the table. Errantius ( talk) 12:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
How can a king castle into a corner square?? In the text it says: "For example, Kg1." WinterSpw ( talk) 00:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
The editors of the Oxford Companion to Chess insist on calling it "standard notation", saying algebraic notation is a "foolish name" as "no algebra is involved". I find this quite amusing. Is "standard notation" an alternative name widespread enough to note in the article? Pawnkingthree ( talk) 11:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You find that amusing? Why? There is no algebra involved, is there? Kind of makes more sense at this point to call it standard notation.-- 172.190.126.190 ( talk) 20:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The following position occurs in the Two Knights Defense, Fried Liver Attack
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
8 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 8 | |||||||
7 | 7 | ||||||||
6 | 6 | ||||||||
5 | 5 | ||||||||
4 | 4 | ||||||||
3 | 3 | ||||||||
2 | 2 | ||||||||
1 | 1 | ||||||||
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
In this position, Nunn's Chess Openings (1999), with Joe Gallagher, John Emms, and Graham Burgess, Everyman Chess, ISBN 1-85744-221-0, gives Ncb4. It's conceivable that some would argue that it should be simplified to Nb4 given then Ndb4 is illegal as that Knight is pinned to King, so moving it would put the King in check. Regards, SunCreator ( talk) 18:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Yet no one is talking about how black somehow has two dark-square bishops... 72.94.179.229 ( talk) 01:42, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
In various places (books, chess web sites, ...) I have seen × ("times" or vector product symbol) instead of the letter x for "takes", I like and use this because I find it quite a lot more readable - compare Rxe8 to R×e8 ... no?. Are there any references concerning that use? — MFH: Talk 23:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
The following statement, "Per FIDE rules, the third form (indicating both the file and rank of departure) is always acceptable, but the first two forms are preferred if they are unambiguous enough (C.8; C.10.3)." is incorrect.
This is because the FIDE rules do not mention the case of the necessity of the third form, so one cannot say that "the first two forms are preferred".
I do not know why FIDE omits this case. Maybe it's a slip of the pen or by intention. For, in tournament games, such a case is rare. It requires three pieces of the same colour and kind. That is very unlikely in tournament games, though it also happened at high-level games.
In that respect, I find it better to omit the statement. It is not necessary to state that FIDE always allows LAN in the section describing the SAN. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:00, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The SAN specification in the PGN specification deserves a prominent notion in this article. This is because it's the only public document describing the SAN in detail. That is the section "8.2.3: Movetext SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation)" in the here referenced specification.
All computer programs I know implement the move description according to this specification, including online chess. Notably, per this specification, the SAN for each legal move is uniquely determined.
The FIDE laws in their appendix "Appendix C. Algebraic Notation" notably do not give a specification of the SAN, only an informal description. For example, they omit the case where the file and rank of a moving piece must be specified to avoid disambiguation. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:33, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The introduction sentence "Besides the FIDE standard (or short) algebraic notation already described, [...]" is incorrect.
This is because the SAN was not specified by FIDE (or if so, how can that be, as the FIDE laws do not even give a complete description of it?). Also, FIDE allows the use of SAN and LAN, so using SAN is not a FIDE standard, if understood as such.
So "FIDE" in the introduction sentence must be omitted. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:13, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
How can this happen? I've never seen it or heard of it. Can anyone cite any examples? I've heard of half point byes, but not ½–0 results. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 09:51, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
As I explained above, there are situations – and they are very easy to judge – that the opponent of the offending player cannot win the game. The reason is that he does not have sufficient material to checkmate the opponent's king. He has, for instance, only a bare king.
In these cases it is not fair to award a full point to the player with a bare king. And, even in these situations, there are two different options mentioned in the Laws of Chess:
Option One: The game is declared a draw. This happened in case of overstepping the time limit and the third illegal move.
Option Two: In case of a ringing phone, the owner of the ringing phone receives 0, but his opponent receives only 1 point if he is able to checkmate the opponent's king. If he has only the king, the result of the game is ½-0 or 0-½.
— Geurt Gijssen
Is castling written with the letter O or the number 0?-- Sonjaaa 11:31, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Some PGN readers (Chess Informant Expert, for example) fail when they encounter castling written as numbers. Using the capital letters avoids this problem.-- JStripes 01:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Handy as it may be for this article, I have never personally come across the abbreviations AN or DN for algebraic notation and descriptive notation. I'd like to see the use of those abbreviations in print somewhere outside of Wikipedia to believe that these are abbreviations in actual use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.154.29.13 ( talk) 18:57, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Shouldn't this be left for the articles on algebraic notation written in the international wiki's? I don't see the point in telling someone the Russian algebraic notation in the English article, since that should be in the article on ru.wikipedia.org or wherever. -- Malathion 05:17, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Sometimes English speakers read chess books or articles in other languages, and it helps to know what the abbreviations are. I think it should be restored. I got that list from the US Chess Federation rule book, so they saw fit to include it.
-- Bubba73 05:49, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
It is not a rare occurance that an English speaker has or reads chess books or magazines that are written in a language he doesn't understand. (I have some.) But if he knows the abbreviations of the pieces he can follow the moves of the game or analysis, even if he can't read the text. Readers of other languages probably know what their abbreviations of the pieces are, but an English speaker who doesn't read the other language (and therefore doesn't know the words for the pieces in that language) can read the moves - if he knows their abbreviations in that language. -- Bubba73 14:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
Occasionally I have seen an N suffix used after certain moves (e.g. axb5N), but I have been unable to find any information as to what this suffix means. Does anyone have any ideas? TCrossland 13:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The article says "Beginning in the 1970s, the abbreviated algebraic notation eventually came to replace descriptive chess notation, " That is in English language publications, right? Didn't other languages already use AN? Bubba73 (talk), 18:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I stopped being interested in chess after the descriptive notation went out and cold,calculating machine-friendly algebraic notation came in. 10010100 10001001 00100100 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.85.15.86 ( talk • contribs).
Yes, of course it is true that algebraic was the standard notation in many other languages long before the 1970s. Edward Lasker used algebraic notation when he first published his book Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership in 1918; he was criticized for this, although according to Lasker algebraic was already the standard in "most other countries" (source: Edward Lasker, Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters).
does anyone know how in maltese both queen and king have the same symbol? -- Lucinos 09:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I created a new template, Template:chess notation, to alleviate the need for sentences such as the following: "The French Defense begins with the following moves (see algebraic chess notation): 1.e4 e6 etc." The parenthetical comment interrupts the flow of the sentence, and also does not help readers who happen to skim the article and skip that sentence. Some articles that contain chess notation do not attempt to explain what it is. This new template will solve all that.
When you type {{chess notation}} at the top of an article (or anywhere else), the following message appears:
Of course, feel free to edit the template, as long as you maintain the link to this article. Correspondingly, it is critically important to maintain the high quality of this article because so many other articles link to it. YechielMan 21:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the new Endgame classification section belongs in this article, as it is not algebraic notation. 66.188.102.79 07:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I've never seen Kt used in algebraic chess notation, only N. What's the source? -- Jao 12:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Chess notation duplicate topic?
ChessCreator (
talk) 01:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Forget that.
ChessCreator (
talk)
01:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
All external links to appendix E of the FIDE Handbook are now broken. I can't find the appendices anywhere on the official website! What has happened? -- Jao ( talk) 18:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
What does the name of pieces have to do with algebraic chess notation? Also, shouldn't the english Wikipedia use english except for articles about other languages? It's not like we normally include translations of content within the article. 68.42.72.226 ( talk) 10:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
This article is about Algebraic notation in chess and I think the correct naming would be Algebraic notation (chess). Can anyone provide a reliable source with the name Algebraic chess notation because from a google search it appears that the name while widely used, most likely had wikipedia as a source. SunCreator ( talk) 01:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
In "Pawn Promotion," it is written, "(The "=" sign is in fact used to represent the offer of a draw.)" I am removing that sentence. If anyone finds a source for that and adds it back in, great. But I'm unaware of that ever having been true in any form of Algebraic. (Though I'm very willing to be corrected by properly verified source material.) 98.228.92.5 ( talk) 17:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
What's described in this article is "Standard Algebraic Notation", at least according to Chess notation. Also included in that entry are more sub-types, such as Minimal Algebraic Notation (MAN), which is used by the New York Times. TerrificBowler ( talk) 03:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
"Horizontal files"?! "Vertical ranks"?! Never heard it described that way. (I thought I was reading misprints!) At the least, it is an inherently confusing way to describe. (The files go vertical. But they are stacked horizontally. I had to figure out what was being said. This is no way to explain to a beginner trying to learn.) Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 00:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Under subsection Long algebraic notation, this sentence was supported using a ref to a 1977 book by Golombek:
Long algebraic notation was no longer recognized by FIDE as of 1981.
(To quote Commander Kruge from The Search for Spock, "How can that be?" Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 10:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
PGN is not really a similar notation - it uses algebraic notation. I don't think it belongs in the "similar notation" section. It does belong somewhere, but I don't know where. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm wondering about the exact format of AN. Is there a space after the period and before the move: 1. e4 versus 1.e4? I prefer a space. What about a black move? I've seen 1...c5, 1. ...c5, 1. ... c5, and 1 ... c5. Is there a preference or standard? Bubba73 (talk), 04:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Two issues:
188.169.229.30 ( talk) 01:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Could someone add notes on the history of algebraic notation? Who suggested the format? When was it first used? When did FIDE make it mandatory? Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.82.209 ( talk) 00:09, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
Somewhere we should treat the other notation elements someone is likely to encounter when reading about chess:
E.g. from http://misc.traveller.com/chess/beginner/notation/notation.html
It isn't clear that the algebraic notation page is the right place. Jeff 18:56 Nov 4, 2002 (UTC)
! a good move !! an excellent move ? a mistake ?? a blunder
These are also employed in descriptive notation, which was dominant in England and the United States from its early development in the mid-nineteenth century (later than algebraic) until the 1980s. Hence, Algebraic chess notation is not clearly the right place, although it is as logical as any other.
JStripes 00:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Should there also be mention of the notation Informator uses, which is algebraic, but with piece symbols instead of letter?-- Gangster Octopus 23:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
While it's true that in algebraic notation one almost never needs a symbol for the pawn, occasionally it does arise, e.g. in writing analysis of variations one may want to write "P(either)xe5" or even "PxP" to mean the same continuation would follow. Do professional chess writers ever use P like this or is it just me? 91.107.143.2 ( talk) 19:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Next to the entry on compensation ("∞/= or =/∞ compensation for material deficit") somebody added the html comment "Which way round does this work?". I'm not sure I understand the question; the symbol means that the side with less material has compensation for it (it tends to imply adequate compensation). You can see which side is the one with more material and which is the one with compensation for it by looking at the position. Could somebody elaborate on what the problem is? Maybe the poster assumes one of the given signs means "White has compensation" and the other "Black has compensation" (not the case as far as I know; it's just that some publications use one, some the other)? -- Camembert 13:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Correct--New In Chess puts the = on bottom, Informant on top. -- silverpie 17:00, 22 March 2006 (USA-EST)
∞/= and =/∞ mean two different things! White is always on top, Black is always on bottom, so ∞/= means that it's equal even though White is down material, because White has some intangible (positional) advantage. =/∞ means that Black is down material, but has some positional advantage. 50.154.29.13 ( talk) 18:59, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
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“Algebraic notation” isn’t a “misnomer” (or a mistake) just because it isn’t related to the math department known as “algebra”. And it is in fact related to a wider meaning of algebra. The term algebra in my dictionary is defined as a “system of calculation that substitutes letters for numbers” (which certainly fits chess) or “any set or expression that uses only numbers and letters”, which easily fits algebraic notation, where file letters “a” through “h” are letters substituted for numbers 1 through 8. In fact the word “algebra” derives from the Arabic word that means “mending something that’s broken”, so you could say that the “algebra math department” itself is a misnomer. But we don’t. If you wanted to you could say that chess is full of misnomers, including the word “King”, “Queen” … (etc.) But they’re not, not really. So I removed the unsourced suggestion from the article. Handthrown ( talk) 12:51, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
I removed Krabbé's joke 0-0-0-0 because it's off topic for this article. It doesn't inform the reader anything useful about AN. Places it does belong: castling, Tim Krabbé, and joke chess problem. Quale ( talk) 03:04, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't know how to edit the "chess names" table referenced in this article.
It contains an error: in Georgian, the King and the Knight are shown as having the same abbreviation. If a chess game given in Georgian algebraic notion on one person's Facebook page is to be believed, it's the Knight that gets a two character symbol: მხ (for Mkh). Quadibloc ( talk) 11:59, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
I found out it was something called a "template", and so I have found out how to make the required correction. Quadibloc ( talk) 12:07, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Despite an anon's repeated attempts to "correct a fact", Stamma did use the letter of the initial file of the piece (a = QR, b = QN, etc.) rather than the first letter of the piece name. Apparently Stamma used lower case letters in his openings and upper case letters in his problems, and HJR Murray wrote that many of Stamma's early imitators followed suit. Other particulars: Stamma spaced the letters (p e 4), used a cross for check, and had no symbols for captures or castling. (A History of Chess, p. 848) Quale ( talk) 04:05, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
The entry at Figurine/Chess contains an ellipsis. I assume that should be an empty text. (Technically, an NBSP or a literal space would be adequate.) As it currently stands (with the ellipsis), one might understand that the word Chess in the language Figurine, is written as "...", which obviously is not the intention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.37.71 ( talk) 18:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
@ Ihardlythinkso: Regarding this revert...in most cases, thin spaces aren't needed in article text, and in the spirit of keep markup simple, I've been removing them. Numeric HTML entities are in general confusing to editors, and so I've been replacing them with actual characters, or in the case of whitespace, named HTML entities. MOS:NBSP suggests that for this application, {{thinsp}} or are preferred to the numeric entity. In my browser, though, having the thin space there actually makes the closing double quote mark look uncomfortably and asymmetrically far from the #. Given the wide variety of fonts and platforms people are viewing articles on, I think it's better to let the browser decide how to space characters rather than trying to make them pixel-perfect on one's own screen. If a given combination doesn't look right, a good long-term fix is to report that to the developer of the rendering engine or font. -- Beland ( talk) 02:02, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Just to let y'all know, at VIcipaedia's page on this, we have a really nice, much more complete table for piece names in various languages, if someone wants to copy it.-- Ioshus (talk) 19:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I wonder how I can add an entry in the table for another language. Suhemin ( talk) 08:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
For "Spanish", in this day and age, it would be better to see "Castilian" at least in parentheses under the other language name. Throughout Latin America it is known as Spanish, but in modern Spain there are four Spanish languages: Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Basque, and Galician. Franco has long been deceased. Although it was his desire for there to be only one language called "Spanish", modern Spain recognizes all four as Spanish languages. To just write Spanish is now politically incorrect for Europeans, and the USA should start to catch on. Shrommer ( talk) 14:59, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
The rows from Hindi down to Hausa are out of order, but there doesn't seem to be a way to edit the table. Errantius ( talk) 12:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
How can a king castle into a corner square?? In the text it says: "For example, Kg1." WinterSpw ( talk) 00:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
The editors of the Oxford Companion to Chess insist on calling it "standard notation", saying algebraic notation is a "foolish name" as "no algebra is involved". I find this quite amusing. Is "standard notation" an alternative name widespread enough to note in the article? Pawnkingthree ( talk) 11:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You find that amusing? Why? There is no algebra involved, is there? Kind of makes more sense at this point to call it standard notation.-- 172.190.126.190 ( talk) 20:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The following position occurs in the Two Knights Defense, Fried Liver Attack
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
8 | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 8 | |||||||
7 | 7 | ||||||||
6 | 6 | ||||||||
5 | 5 | ||||||||
4 | 4 | ||||||||
3 | 3 | ||||||||
2 | 2 | ||||||||
1 | 1 | ||||||||
a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
In this position, Nunn's Chess Openings (1999), with Joe Gallagher, John Emms, and Graham Burgess, Everyman Chess, ISBN 1-85744-221-0, gives Ncb4. It's conceivable that some would argue that it should be simplified to Nb4 given then Ndb4 is illegal as that Knight is pinned to King, so moving it would put the King in check. Regards, SunCreator ( talk) 18:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Yet no one is talking about how black somehow has two dark-square bishops... 72.94.179.229 ( talk) 01:42, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
In various places (books, chess web sites, ...) I have seen × ("times" or vector product symbol) instead of the letter x for "takes", I like and use this because I find it quite a lot more readable - compare Rxe8 to R×e8 ... no?. Are there any references concerning that use? — MFH: Talk 23:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
The following statement, "Per FIDE rules, the third form (indicating both the file and rank of departure) is always acceptable, but the first two forms are preferred if they are unambiguous enough (C.8; C.10.3)." is incorrect.
This is because the FIDE rules do not mention the case of the necessity of the third form, so one cannot say that "the first two forms are preferred".
I do not know why FIDE omits this case. Maybe it's a slip of the pen or by intention. For, in tournament games, such a case is rare. It requires three pieces of the same colour and kind. That is very unlikely in tournament games, though it also happened at high-level games.
In that respect, I find it better to omit the statement. It is not necessary to state that FIDE always allows LAN in the section describing the SAN. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:00, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The SAN specification in the PGN specification deserves a prominent notion in this article. This is because it's the only public document describing the SAN in detail. That is the section "8.2.3: Movetext SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation)" in the here referenced specification.
All computer programs I know implement the move description according to this specification, including online chess. Notably, per this specification, the SAN for each legal move is uniquely determined.
The FIDE laws in their appendix "Appendix C. Algebraic Notation" notably do not give a specification of the SAN, only an informal description. For example, they omit the case where the file and rank of a moving piece must be specified to avoid disambiguation. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:33, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The introduction sentence "Besides the FIDE standard (or short) algebraic notation already described, [...]" is incorrect.
This is because the SAN was not specified by FIDE (or if so, how can that be, as the FIDE laws do not even give a complete description of it?). Also, FIDE allows the use of SAN and LAN, so using SAN is not a FIDE standard, if understood as such.
So "FIDE" in the introduction sentence must be omitted. Dlbbld ( talk) 13:13, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
How can this happen? I've never seen it or heard of it. Can anyone cite any examples? I've heard of half point byes, but not ½–0 results. MaxBrowne2 ( talk) 09:51, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
As I explained above, there are situations – and they are very easy to judge – that the opponent of the offending player cannot win the game. The reason is that he does not have sufficient material to checkmate the opponent's king. He has, for instance, only a bare king.
In these cases it is not fair to award a full point to the player with a bare king. And, even in these situations, there are two different options mentioned in the Laws of Chess:
Option One: The game is declared a draw. This happened in case of overstepping the time limit and the third illegal move.
Option Two: In case of a ringing phone, the owner of the ringing phone receives 0, but his opponent receives only 1 point if he is able to checkmate the opponent's king. If he has only the king, the result of the game is ½-0 or 0-½.
— Geurt Gijssen
Is castling written with the letter O or the number 0?-- Sonjaaa 11:31, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Some PGN readers (Chess Informant Expert, for example) fail when they encounter castling written as numbers. Using the capital letters avoids this problem.-- JStripes 01:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Handy as it may be for this article, I have never personally come across the abbreviations AN or DN for algebraic notation and descriptive notation. I'd like to see the use of those abbreviations in print somewhere outside of Wikipedia to believe that these are abbreviations in actual use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.154.29.13 ( talk) 18:57, 14 November 2016 (UTC)