"David Richerby" wrote in message
...
Ange1o DePa1ma wrote:
"David Richerby" wrote:
Beliavsky wrote:
I want to teach my son to keep score using long algebraic notation,

Why? Why not teach him to use the notation that's used in all the
books?

First of all it's not used everywhere. Bronstein's Zurich 1953
tournament book uses long algebraic.

OK, and there are plenty of old books in descriptive, too. But the
overwhelming majority of chess books published in, say, the last
twenty years are in short algebraic.


The great thing about long algebraic is it is completely self-
consistent and intuitive, and contains a built-in error check. For
example 3-4 times during a game I will confuse the 4th and 5th
ranks, 3rd and 6th, etc. I would hate to lose a time control win
because I had too many incorrect move inputs. This way it's almost
impossible as you must make two mistakes.

I really don't buy this argument. Suppose you want to play the move
``Rook from b1 to b4'' but you confuse the fourth and fifth ranks. In
short algebraic, you write Rb5, which is wrong; in long algebraic, you
write b1b5, which is just as wrong. Suppose you want to make the move
``Rook from b4 to c4'': in short algebraic, you write Rc5, which is
wrong; in long algebraic, you write b5c5, which is also wrong.
Admittedly, in the second case, the move is less ambiguous in the case
where the move ``Rook from f5 to c5'' was legal, too. Suppose you
want to play the move ``Rook from b4 to b1''. In short algebraic, you
write ``Rb1'', which is correct; in long algebraic, you write
``b5b1'', which is wrong.

Right. It's not foolproof, but it introduces another cue or reference point.
Playing Rb6 but writing Rb3 is a common mistake I make. If the rook were
coming from b1 and moved five squares I might realize it did not move only
two squares, and be less likely to write Rb1-b3. Similarly, if the original
square was on the fifth rank and you wrote Rb5-b3 but the actual move was
Rb5-b6, something might jolt you into realizing, "Hey, I didn't move
backwards but forward" (for White).