Monday, August 31, 2009

How to Understand Descriptive Notation in Chess Strategy Books

"Notation" is a method in chess strategy books that is used todescribe the movement of pieces on the chess board, without needing a visual diagram of the chess board for each move. It greatly increases a chess author's ability to describe a large number of chess games in compact form, leaving more room for game analysis. It also allows the author to concentrate on chess strategies and tactics, rather than requiring hundreds and hundreds of cumbersome diagrams of the chess board for each move.


If you are a chess player, aspiring to improve through strategy books, understanding the two chess notation styles is crucial to your improvement. Most chess strategy books are either written in "Descriptive Notation," or "Algebraic Notation."

Descriptive Notation, in general, was used in older chess books and magazines, although it is possible to run into more current chess literature using this notation style as well. There are a huge number of valuable chess books written in this style. I've posted a visual diagram of a chess board describing descriptive notation on my chess strategies site Chess Victory Scroll to the bottom, and click on the resources link to access the diagram.


In chess literature, the term "rank" refers to the rows of the chess board. "File" refers to the columns. If a chess book talks about the "1st rank" it means the "first row." The "a file" refers to the "a column."


In Descriptive notation, the files are named according to the chess piece on that file in its initial position. For instance, QR means "queen's rook" and KB means "king's rook." The diagram on my website mentioned above also shows how the squares have different names/notations depending on if we're describing the
white side or the black side. Each square is also described with a number, describing the rank of the square, for instance, QR7 means the queen's rook file in the 7th rank.


The movement of a piece is described by the name of the piece, then a dash, then the name of the square to which it is moving. For instance, Q-QB8 means that the queen is moving to square QB8. Sometimes the square names are shortened a bit if it is obvious which square is being described. Both "KT" and "N" are used to describe a knight.


Important notes: Check is described with a "+" or "ch". A capture is noted with a "x" followed by the piece being captured. If the game has become complicated and it is unclear which piece is being referred to, the description will sometimes note whether it is the kingside or queenside piece being moved. Instead of R-K7, the clearer description would read QR-K7. P-K7=Q means the pawn moves to K7 and is then promoted to a queen. Castling is noted as O-O or O-O-O.


The best way to become familiar with descriptive notation is to go to my chess tactics and chess strategies site Chess Victory, scroll to the bottom, and click on the resources link. On that page I've posted diagrams for the chessboard in descriptive notation, as well as a sample game written in descriptive notation, along with clear diagrams of the chess board so you can easily see which piece is moving.


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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Chess Strategies Videos



Great Video Regarding How to Play Chess: Rook Chess Playing Strategies.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Chess Opening Strategy


Opening Chess Strategies To Boost Your Game




Many comments have been made about the objectives of the opening
play and perhaps the best advice we've heard is the one about
being able to get to the middle game with a playable position.

This ideally means that you have your king safeguarded, your
pieces have decent mobility and scope, you also have sound pawn
structures, and you have opportunities to create real threats to
decisively win material or even cause a checkmate.

Most chess instructional books will list the following as
important opening concepts to achieve the above:-

- Controlling the Centre
- Develop your pieces
- Safeguarding your king, ideal defence, maintaining the
integrity of the castled king
- Hinder your opponent's attempts to do any/all of the above

The player who can get the job done quicker will usually be
rewarded with a superior middle game position. Tempi is
therefore a very critical factor in the opening. Every move
counts towards securing key positions, getting another piece
orchestrated into the attack and/or keeping the king out of
harm's way. Many less skilled players tend to overlook the
importance of this. So avoid making futile moves in the opening
or attacking too early without sufficient attacking pieces or
insufficient backup.


TEMPI is basically how to get there faster.
Some openings are deceptively passive and "quiet" favouring a
slow strategical battle and gradually building up tactical
opportunities which explodes later into the middle game. Some
others are aggressive and explosive very early in the game
abounding in tactical opportunities for both with lots of
threats and counter threats. And, yet others get very quickly
into the middle and the end game usually with a race for pawn
promotions determining the eventual winner.

Find an opening that suits your style of play and let it well.
Gambits and hypermodern openings are usually favoured by strong
tactical players as they often present many exciting tactical
opportunities. Always remember, different openings to suit
different style of play.

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