http://www.oocities.org/xadrezrex

Written by Arnaldo Rodrigues D'Almeida

Published in: April / 2002

Revised in: June/2002

3- Notation

The notation is good to register the moves of a game. The analysis of the games, move by move, will allow the player to learn the tactics and its opponent's strategies. Besides, you can notice your mistakes and successes, what will contribute to improve your performance.

When the notation is based on two coordinated axes, as it is the case of the Cartesian notation, this allows to correlate, by means of equation, the movements of the pieces, what is fundamental in the computer’s programs.

There are several notation types. The most common, used in the traditional chess, is the Cartesian alpha-numeric. Besides that, there is the Short notation, among others.

Cartesian alpha-numeric notation

That notation consists of describing the origin positions and destiny of the piece that it was moved. The representation of those positions is made by means of Cartesian coordinates. The Cartesian coordinates are formed by the numeration of the ranks and ordering of letters of the “files”.

That board has 9 ranks, but it doesn't have files. However, for effect of that notation, files will be considered the group of hexagons disposed in the vertical and aligned in the diagonal. The files are designated from a to t, while the ranks from 1 to 9. All the hexagons can be represented by a letter, followed by a number. There aren't hexagons that have the same notation. For example, there is only one hexagon that can be represented as m7 (Figure 1). Observe in Figure 1 that in the board there aren't hexagons represented by m6 or m8.

Figure 1: Representation of the hexagon m7 in the empty REX board.

The notation of a move is described as, “hexagon of origin”-“hexagon of destiny”. For example, in the beginning of the game (Figure 2), the White ones can begin with the following move: d1-e4. That move means that the Knight located in d1 was moved for e4.

Figure 2: Positioning the pieces at the beginning of the game.

The move mentioned previously could be represented by d1-e4 or Nd1-e4 (to see Table 1). The additional information is redundant, however, it can be convenient to use it, because in case of a mistaken notation, the possibilities to detect and to correct the mistake increase.

Each letter corresponds to a piece, and the capital letters correspond to the white pieces and the small letters correspond to the black pieces.

Table 1: Correspondence of the letters with the pieces.

Short notation

The move is described for: “piece” followed by the “hexagon of destiny.” That notation allows the players to write down their moves quickly during a chess game.

Using the same previous example, in the beginning of the game (Figure 2), the White ones can begin with the following move: e4 (or Ne4). That move is equal for d1-e4.

If the opening move went, for example, i4 (or Pi4), the notation would not be applied because the information would be incomplete, there are two possibilities: h3-i4 or j3-i4. It would not be known which Pawn would have been moved. Where was located the Pawn that was moved: h3 or j3?

To solve that problem, Wellington Campos stipulated that, when you move the Pawn you must put the letter that corresponds to the origin hexagon instead of the symbol of the Pawn ( or P); then the move for the Summarized notation would be h-i4 or j-i4, for the Pawn located in h3 or j3, respectively.

Eventually, you may have to move another piece of the same kind (generally, Knight or Rook) that can be moved to the same destiny hexagon. In this case the Cartesian notation should be used. For example: if there are one Knigth in e4 and other in p4, and the player moves Nj5, them which Knight was moved to j5? The Knigth was moved to j5, the Knight in e4 or p4?

Figure 3: Nj5 is wrong notation.

Information or comments send e-mail to: chessrex@bol.com.br

1- Introduction

2- Rules

3- Notation

4- The game

5- Strategies

6- Matches

7- Problems

8- Board

9- Downloads

10- Links