30
The c6 knight is pinned by the bishop on b5. Note that if the c6 knight were to move it would leave Black's king in check, which renders any such move illegal.
Therefore it is ok in this case to write "Ne7" instead of "Nge7", since the pin means that there is no ambiguity as to which knight moves.
26
I would read it as "Pawn takes something on a1 and promotes to a Queen".
Strictly according to the Laws of Chess the = sign should not be there (see article C.11).
C.11
In the case of the promotion of a pawn, the actual pawn move is indicated, followed immediately by the abbreviation of the new piece. Examples: d8Q, exf8N, b1B, g1R.
However this is a ...
23
Would it be sufficient here to write Ne4+ (meaning Nce4) only (i.e.
without the "c" but with "+"), as Nfe4 would not be check?
It depends on exactly what you mean by "sufficient". By "normal" definitions of "sufficient" the answer is obviously "yes". "Ne4+" disambiguates and leaves the human reader in no doubt which knight was moved.
However it doesn't ...
20
Both recording checks and draw offers are personal preference, and neither is required in your notation.
I actually do record both checks as "+" or "++", and draw offers as "(d)". I know I am not the only one to note draw offers as I have friends, who do the same. I also record times.
The purpose of the notation is so you, or the arbiter, can play back ...
19
According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:
Appendix C. Algebraic notation
C.12 The offer of a draw shall be marked as (=)
As with a number of the laws regarding recording of the moves this is not strictly enforced by arbiters. I did once play in a tournament in which a very junior arbiter delivered a short harangue to us players telling us to record draw ...
19
The expression I used is bc3
Lowercase letters ALWAYS refer to pawns/files. Uppercase ALWAYS refers to pieces. You need to use Bxc3 for "Bishop at d2"xc3.
18
The FIDE Laws of Chess 2018 are unambiguous: you should write Nce4, and the + sign is optional and not disambiguating. Ne4+ is not sufficient.
Appendix C (algebraic notation), article C.10 basically tells you to write Nce4 to distinguish it from Nfe4. It does not mention check or other ways to disambiguate.
Article C.13 notes that writing "+" to indicate ...
16
If you have two rooks, standing on different files (one of them on the d-file), that could capture on d2, then Rdxd2 is the correct notation.
If you have two rooks on the d-file, and both can take on d2, then use the rank number to disambiguate, for instance R1xd2.
This is according to the Algebraic System required by FIDE's Laws of Chess (see appendix C, ...
15
Your two knights are on d2 and f2.
Ndxe4, Nfxe4,
Your two knights are on f2 and f6.
N2xe4, N6xe4
Your three knights are on d2, f2 and f6 (you promoted a pawn)
Ndxe4, Nf2xe4, N6xe4
14
Adding on to Brian Towers' answer, there is a quick way you can script this (assuming you are on Linux or another POSIX system with the tr command):
cat gamelog.txt | tr 'abcdefgh12345678' 'hgfedcba87654321' > gamelog_reversed.txt
Edit: as @wimi said, this will mess up move numbers, so be careful about that. You may want to use cut and paste to seperate ...
14
The "x" means "captures". So, exd5 means the e pawn captures the piece on d5, which may be either a pawn or a more valuable piece.
If the piece doing the capturing is not a pawn then the letter for the piece is used, e.g. Nxc3
Here is an example from the Scotch Gambit
[fen ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3 dxc3 5. Nxc3
13
The castling notation was invented by Johann Allgaier and used for the first time in his 1811 2nd edition of his Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel.
He didn't explain why he came up with it.
Allgaier (and algebraic notation in general) used digit-0. The use of letter-O is an anglo-saxon oddity.
12
That's descriptive notation. Click that to go to the wiki page.
It is an obsolete notation, having been replaced by algebraic or figurine algebraic notation.
B x KP means, Bishop (B) takes (x) Kings (K) Pawn (P).
Q-R5 - Queen (Q) Moves To (-) Rook's (R) Fifth square (5)
Then there are ways to show castling, etc.
EDIT - doubled pawns. Descriptive Notation ...
12
Best guess: the mistake occured before, on move 15
Entry errors are frequent when games are entered into a software, especially if they are not entered by one of the players.
Here the operator must have made an error before move 19, reached an anomaly, and couldn't solve the mystery (or didn't have time to try, there are other games to be saved). In such ...
11
It hasn't always been so, but these days (at least according to FIDE rules) it's illegal to write your move down before making it, outside of some situations in which a draw is being claimed or the game is being adjourned. Here are the exact details as to when a move should be recorded (with the most relevant part italicized):
8.1.
In the course of play ...
11
If you set the board up correctly, i.e. "white on the right and queen on her own colour", then you need to flip the letters like this:
a ↔ h
b ↔ g
c ↔ f
d ↔ e
and the numbers like this:
1 ↔ 8
2 ↔ 7
3 ↔ 6
4 ↔ 5
So, if white's first move was to push the pawn in front of the king 2 squares you will have written "d5" or "...
11
Other than the algebraic nomenclature:
Two off the top of my head are
Correspondence chess used 1:1 to 8:8 to label the squares.
Descriptive notation predated algebraic: 1. P-K4 P-K4 2. KN-B3 QN-B3 and so on.
10
Some websites offer "coordinate drills". I'm not sure how effective they are for learning, but you can certainly give them a try. I found it to be surprisingly entertaining to try to beat my personal record number of coordinates per minute (or whatever the time limit is). Here are the two I know of, but maybe there are others (and maybe there are apps, as ...
10
Can anyone please explain to me what these symbols mean?
These are the abbreviations for the pieces in Dutch. I believe they are almost the same as the German ones (with the exception of the knight = Springer (jumper) in German and = paard (horse) in Dutch (Pferd = horse in German), which are -
T = Turm (= Castle, Rook)
P = Pferd (= Horse, Knight)
L = ...
10
Due to the geometry of pawns moves, 8 seems to be the maximum for singular pawn moves.
Here is an example game for "e5."
[FEN ""]
1. e4 Nc6 2. e5 Nb8 3. e6 dxe6 4. d3 e5 5. Nc3 e4 6. dxe4 Nc6 7. e5 Nb8 8. e6 fxe6 9. Nb1 e5 10. f3 e4 11. fxe4 e5 12. Nf3 Nc6 13. Nxe5 Nb8 14. Nf3 Nc6 15. e5 Qd3 16. cxd3 Bf5 17. e6 Be4 18. dxe4 Nd4 19. e5 ...
9
Well, it isn't legal for two reasons,
One, lets say that the opponent gave you an handshake. That would mean that the recorded moves are null, and it may cause some troubles with the arbiters.
Two, Article 8.1:
In the course of play each player is required to record his own moves
and those of his opponent in the correct manner, move after move, as
...
9
I can think of several reasons:
The players will want to know how many moves have been played in the game (as you often get extra time after moves 40 and 60), how many moves have been played before the last pawn move or capture etc. Currently the players may not consult any other material than the score sheets during a game, but even if the rule was changed,...
8
From the PGN specification (http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec):
Neither the appearance nor the absence of either a check or
checkmating indicator is used for disambiguation purposes. This means
that if two (or more) pieces of the same type can move to the same
square the differences in checking status of the moves does not
allieviate the ...
8
A notation like Kg1 would give the impression that only the king is moved. At the very least, it is not obvious that castling moves the rook as well.
8
Well, after your update I come to the conclusion that these signs are used by the author to mark the omission of the notation of the respective move by White.
This is not a common usage of them, and I have never seen it before. It should be documented somewhere at the beginning or end of the book. But I'd not be surprised if it's not, since it doesn't ...
8
Yes, it's possible for a piece to need both the rank and file to distinguish it, although it's rare. For example:
[FEN "8/1k6/8/8/5Q2/8/3Q1QK1/8 w - - 0 1"]
1.Qf2e3
7
It's 2019-12 now and 5 years after the original question.
Does any such thing exist (webcam/video to pgn converter)? A
prototype maybe?
see
https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/19
https://github.com/WolfgangFahl/play-chess-with-a-webcam/issues/22
which are both closed by now. See http://lichess.bitplan.com for a game ...
7
For an online tool, lichess is good. You can enter your game and have it analysed by a computer engine.
The analysed game will have annotations in plain language ("mistake/blunder/inaccuracy") and of course contain the computer evaluation score after each move.
Once you have a game analysed on lichess, they have another good feature called: "Learn from ...
7
Looks like it's just algebraic notation using Dutch as the language, most likely given the author's nationality and that the rest of the article looks like Dutch - not the whole of the world speaks English! You can translate it yourself using the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)
7
The comments in braces means that the move before had the effect noted in that set of { }s . It is just annotating the game to explain the moves.
It may have been spoken during the match if it were broadcast, but it was definitely printed in the game summary later at the link you provided to bell labs.
The !! means that the move was excellent, ...
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