I've started reading a book called Gary Kasparov teaches chess. In
the early part of the book he uses a notation I am not familiar with.
He uses both ( 6. cd - Nxd5) and (9. bc - Be7), I have an idea due to
the context, but wanted to make sure of the meaning of the cd & bc.

Thanks,
Zilla

In article ,
Zilla wrote:

I've started reading a book called Gary Kasparov teaches chess. In
the early part of the book he uses a notation I am not familiar with.
He uses both ( 6. cd - Nxd5) and (9. bc - Be7), I have an idea due to
the context, but wanted to make sure of the meaning of the cd & bc.


cd means cxd5, or whatever c-pawn can capture whatever is on
d-something. Either that, or he wants you to also buy a compact disc
that was made over 2000 years ago.

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

Thanks for the information and humor. (Your explaination is exactly
what the book leads one to believe, but I wanted to be sure)

On Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:12:42 -0600, Harold Buck
wrote:

In article ,
Zilla wrote:

I've started reading a book called Gary Kasparov teaches chess. In
the early part of the book he uses a notation I am not familiar with.
He uses both ( 6. cd - Nxd5) and (9. bc - Be7), I have an idea due to
the context, but wanted to make sure of the meaning of the cd & bc.


cd means cxd5, or whatever c-pawn can capture whatever is on
d-something. Either that, or he wants you to also buy a compact disc
that was made over 2000 years ago.

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

"Harold Buck" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Zilla wrote:

I've started reading a book called Gary Kasparov teaches chess. In
the early part of the book he uses a notation I am not familiar with.
He uses both ( 6. cd - Nxd5) and (9. bc - Be7), I have an idea due to
the context, but wanted to make sure of the meaning of the cd & bc.


cd means cxd5, or whatever c-pawn can capture whatever is on
d-something. Either that, or he wants you to also buy a compact disc
that was made over 2000 years ago.

--Harold Buck

Isn't a notation like cd only used when it is a pawn being captured? cxd4
can mean both, but usually means a piece is being captured. I think.

Fred wrote:
Isn't a notation like cd only used when it is a pawn being captured?
cxd4 can mean both, but usually means a piece is being captured. I
think.

Possibly but it's only a convention so one person's interpretation might
differ from another's. The `official notation', as sanctioned by FIDE
doesn't have the `cd'-style abbreviation -- see Section E of

http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=EE102

(I was surprised to see that they mandate adding ``ep'' for en passant
pawn captures, even though exd6 is already unambiguous for a white pawn on
e5 capturing the black d5-pawn en passant.)


Dave.

--
David Richerby Strange Boss (TM): it's like a middle
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ manager but it's totally weird!

"David Richerby" wrote in message
...

http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=EE102

(I was surprised to see that they mandate adding ``ep'' for en passant
pawn captures, even though exd6 is already unambiguous for a white pawn on
e5 capturing the black d5-pawn en passant.)

Yes - a good point.
However, I think on reflection that the "ep" notation is helpful as it:

minimises the likelihood of misreading a correct gamescore, (particularly
when either of a pair doubled pawns eg. on e4 and e5 could legally take on
d6 or d5); and

makes proof-reading of a gamescore easier and more reliable - especially
since any of the following are plausible in the doubled pawn case described
above:

d6 exd6
d5 exd6
d5 exd5

With some typefaces (and handwriting) it can be difficult to distinguish d5
from d6.

--
Regards - Jim

Jim Hill wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
(I was surprised to see that they mandate adding ``ep'' for en passant
pawn captures, even though exd6 is already unambiguous for a white pawn on
e5 capturing the black d5-pawn en passant.)

Yes - a good point.
However, I think on reflection that the "ep" notation is helpful as it:

minimises the likelihood of misreading a correct gamescore
makes proof-reading of a gamescore easier and more reliable

True. Redundancy is always useful.


With some typefaces (and handwriting) it can be difficult to distinguish
d5 from d6.

I usually find the problem is in distinguishing c and e, especially in
boldface. In fact, I have one book (can't remember which, I'm afraid),
which has obviously been retyped from a source with such a font difficulty
as the font in this book is pretty clear but there are about two c/e
transcriptions per page.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Solar-Powered Simple Hat (TM): it's
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ like a hat but it has no moving parts
and it doesn't work in the dark!