What is "Chronological Order" in chess?

Question

I have heard about "chronological order" in chess. But I don't know what it is exactly.

Can someone tell me what this is?

Answer 1

Chronological order is just the order, in time, in which you do things. The "chronological order" in which you move can make a big difference in chess and there are two obvious areas where this applies:

• openings
  You want to play a particular opening but avoid some unpleasant (for you) lines. Examples would be replying to 1. d4 with 1... e6 intending 2... f5 to play the Dutch but avoid the Staunton Gambit (2. e4 from White). Or playing the moves 1. d4 2. c4 3. Nf3 instead of 1. d4 2. c4 3. Nc3 which would allow the Nimzowitsch Defence.

• tactics
  Consider this position.

Normally you check for - 1) checks 2) captures 3) threats. One obvious move, Rxh6+, is a check and a capture. If black responds with Kg8 then Rg5 is checkmate. But black will play Kg7, not Kg8, and then take the rook on h6, so it doesn't work. Reversing the order, playing Rg5 first, leads to checkmate.

 [fen "r4r1k/pbp2p2/3np2p/1p2R3/3P1P2/b1PB3R/P1Pb2PP/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

 1. Rxh6+ (1. Rg5 null 2. Rxh6++) 1... Kg7! 2. Rg5+? Kxh6

Answer 2

To be frank, chronological order is not really a chess thing as much as a general thing that is just defined by English.

In 40 years of playing, and reading (at my peak, I had 1800 chess books, and have read 300 cover to cover), that is the first time I have heard the term "chronological order" attempted to be used as a pure chess term.

So to be clear, what I am saying is that it is not a standard chess term, however, it is a common general English term (speaking as a native English speaker) that can be applied to chess or anything else. The person, who wrote that was just using common English lexicon, not common chess lexicon, and it does, indeed, mean "the order in time that you do things".

P.S. To back this up, I also just searched 615 digital chess books, and "chronological order" was found in 20 books, however, after looking at every one of them, and how it was used, it was just used to describe layouts of the material in the book....still not as a pure chess term.