Anders Thulin wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

And throughout the English-speaking world. Did other languages have
equivalent descriptive notations?

There are/were both French and Spanish descriptive notation
-- I expect there's Portuguese and probably Italian as well.

....and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

On 4 okt, 15:21, Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
Anders Thulin wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

And throughout the English-speaking world. Did other languages have
equivalent descriptive notations?

There are/were both French and Spanish descriptive notation
-- I expect there's Portuguese and probably Italian as well.

...and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

Well, it's true that most books use diagrams very scarcely. I would be
happier too if i saw a diagram every 5 or so moves. that way i don't
need a board and can just make the moves in my head. but after 5 or so
moves that tend to become too difficult for me, so a board would be
nice in the books.

The series "Weltgeschichte des Schachs" had collections of 300-500 games of
famous players, with a diagram every 5 moves and a little leaflet at the
back of the book with comments.
You can use software to create your own books with a diagram every 5th move.
I used SCID to do this.
In a .PGN file I changed every move number 6. 11. 16. etcetera
to $201 6. $201 11. $201 16. etcetera
by a search and replace macro.
$201 means "print a diagram" to SCID.

Wijnand.

"tOmmetje" schreef in bericht
oups.com...
On 4 okt, 15:21, Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
Anders Thulin wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

And throughout the English-speaking world. Did other languages have
equivalent descriptive notations?

There are/were both French and Spanish descriptive notation
-- I expect there's Portuguese and probably Italian as well.

...and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

Well, it's true that most books use diagrams very scarcely. I would be
happier too if i saw a diagram every 5 or so moves. that way i don't
need a board and can just make the moves in my head. but after 5 or so
moves that tend to become too difficult for me, so a board would be
nice in the books.

On 4 okt, 23:53, "Wijnand Engelkes" wrote:
The series "Weltgeschichte des Schachs" had collections of 300-500 games of
famous players, with a diagram every 5 moves and a little leaflet at the
back of the book with comments.
You can use software to create your own books with a diagram every 5th move.
I used SCID to do this.
In a .PGN file I changed every move number 6. 11. 16. etcetera
to $201 6. $201 11. $201 16. etcetera
by a search and replace macro.
$201 means "print a diagram" to SCID.

Wijnand.

"tOmmetje" schreef in ooglegroups.com...

On 4 okt, 15:21, Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
Anders Thulin wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

And throughout the English-speaking world. Did other languages have
equivalent descriptive notations?

There are/were both French and Spanish descriptive notation
-- I expect there's Portuguese and probably Italian as well.

...and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

Well, it's true that most books use diagrams very scarcely. I would be
happier too if i saw a diagram every 5 or so moves. that way i don't
need a board and can just make the moves in my head. but after 5 or so
moves that tend to become too difficult for me, so a board would be
nice in the books.

That's pretty smart of you Wijnand. I wonder if I can do the same with
ChessDB (a fork or whatever you may call it) of Scid. I bet you can
though. I'll have to check this out! Thanks!

On Oct 4, 6:10 am, David Richerby
wrote:
Terry Terry wrote:

For me to study a opening line, I have to first set up the board. I
then have to make a move, look at the book, make a move, look at the
book.

Sure. I've not seen anyone have a problem with that. (I'm not trying
to criticize you; just to point out why I'm finding it a bit tricky to
figure out your needs.)

Computers should show each move instead of the notation. Am I
missing something or does one not need to actually need to make the
moves on the chessboard to understand the notation? I sure do.

With practice, it becomes more natural. I would find it very hard to
follow a whole game just from the notation but I can follow five or
six moves without too much difficulty. I still prefer to make the
moves on the board but I don't have to think about it: if I see
something like `Nd5', I immediately know which move to make; I don't
need to work out which square is d5 and which knight is supposed to be
moving there.

BTW I never said I was a beginner.

I know. I was just saying that you already understand a reasonable
amount about what is a pretty complex game. I find it a bit
surprising that you have such a problem with the notation, given the
difficulty of what you've already grasped.

Having a game explained move by move would seem to be more
information and less work.

I am sure there are sites out there. I was asking where they are.

I don't know of any tutorial sites. If you want to look through some
master games, which is an excellent way to learn, go to

http://www.chessgames.com/

You can choose a game from a database of thousands (millions?) and use
a java applet to go through the moves without needing to read any
notation. I'd recommend starting with Morphy's games and then
whichever of Capablanca and Alekhine is more to your taste. However,
without annotations, you're not really getting the full picture.
Maybe the best thing to do would be to get a book of games (say,
Chernev's _The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played_ or a
collection of Capablanca's or Alekhine's games) and use chessgames.com
to go through the moves, rather than a board?

I am not really interested in learning more about notation.

OK. I think that'll hold you back a bit but the important thing is
that you enjoy the game.


Thanks for your suggestions, but I really don't learn much from
studying the masters either.

I might give it a try again, but I don't use Java as I have confirmed
that is has caused me to be infected. I use F Secure and still get
infected with a nasty pop up virus.

I am at a point where the basics are not enough, but the masters are
too much.

The analysis of master games is just too deep for me.

Trying to work out openings is hard for me too. My memory is just not
very good.

I guess I will just have to live with getting my ass owned at
Yahoo.

I would like to buy a book that furnished a disk with a stored book of
moves and throw the notation out the window, but I guess there is just
not a market for it.

I would think chess players would be hungry for such a feature.

Thanks for your time

BTW the opening I always play is Queen's Gambit with white, and I try
the Sicilian with black, but I usually don't have much luck with
black.

I do know I am stronger in open games than closed ones.

On Oct 4, 5:53 pm, "Wijnand Engelkes" wrote:
The series "Weltgeschichte des Schachs" had collections of 300-500 games of
famous players, with a diagram every 5 moves and a little leaflet at the
back of the book with comments.
You can use software to create your own books with a diagram every 5th move.
I used SCID to do this.
In a .PGN file I changed every move number 6. 11. 16. etcetera
to $201 6. $201 11. $201 16. etcetera
by a search and replace macro.
$201 means "print a diagram" to SCID.

Wijnand.

"tOmmetje" schreef in ooglegroups.com...



On 4 okt, 15:21, Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:
Anders Thulin wrote:

David Richerby wrote:

And throughout the English-speaking world. Did other languages have
equivalent descriptive notations?

There are/were both French and Spanish descriptive notation
-- I expect there's Portuguese and probably Italian as well.

...and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

Well, it's true that most books use diagrams very scarcely. I would be
happier too if i saw a diagram every 5 or so moves. that way i don't
need a board and can just make the moves in my head. but after 5 or so
moves that tend to become too difficult for me, so a board would be
nice in the books.

I think every book should include a pgn disk or at least a site to
download them. The pgn files wouldn't be of much use without the
text. It would seem to add value to the book.

Who has not sit at the computer and made pgn games from text?

Terry Terry wrote:
I think every book should include a pgn disk or at least a site to
download them. The pgn files wouldn't be of much use without the
text. It would seem to add value to the book.

In the UK, there is no VAT (sales tax) on books but VAT applies as
soon as you include a CD. (D'oh!)

Online would be fine, though. Perhaps the publishers are worried that
a PGN with the variations would mean many people wouldn't bother
buying the book and a PGN without variations isn't all that much use
and is easily found, anyway, on e.g., chessgames.com .


Dave.

--
David Richerby Salted Voodoo Goldfish (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a fish that has mystical powers but
it's covered in salt!

You can use software to create your own books with a diagram every 5th move.
I used SCID to do this.
In a .PGN file I changed every move number 6. 11. 16. etcetera
to $201 6. $201 11. $201 16. etcetera
by a search and replace macro.
$201 means "print a diagram" to SCID.

I took this one step further with a Perl script (intended to work with
material from chesspublishing.com, but workable with most PGN) that
inserts a diagram every time a comment, annotation, or variant is
found. It can make for a lot of diagrams but makes the notes easy to
follow.

tOmmetje wrote:


Guy Macon http://www.guymacon.com/ wrote:

...and some books used small pictures of the pieces.

Well, it's true that most books use diagrams very scarcely. I would be
happier too if i saw a diagram every 5 or so moves. that way i don't
need a board and can just make the moves in my head. but after 5 or so
moves that tend to become too difficult for me, so a board would be
nice in the books.

I wasn't talking about diagrams. Some books used a small picture of
a knight instead of the "N" in the notation, etc. It was a way to make
a book international.

In article .com,
Terry Terry wrote:

The analysis of master games is just too deep for me.

I think a penny has dropped. When you say "notation", you don't mean
the way the moves are written, but the comments on them - which are
usually referred to as "annotations".

This is certainly a problem with games between top GMs as the positions
are usually very complicated to start with. Many commentators get really
carried away with their analysis and sometimes seem to forget that they
are writing for human readers who aren't super GMs and have other things
to do in their lives apart from studying chess!

This seems to have become much worse since the advent of strong
analytical computer programs.

One solution is to read books written before the computer era - players
such as Botvinnik, Reshevsky and Tal were very good at explaining what
was happening in their games without getting bogged down in endless reams
of analysis (Fischer was another, but his book is not easy to obtain now).
There are also a few modern authors who can do this - Mihail Marin is a
good example. On the occasions when they do give long notes, you can
usually skim over them and then come back later when you have a better
understanding of the rest of the game.

Another possibility is to drop down a level - games played at the
2400-2500 level are usually easier to understand (and, dare I say it,
often more interesting to us amateurs); the players commenting on the
games have more realistic ideas of their audience's ability and
attention span. Look for coverage of national championships, open
tournaments and women's events.

Finally, one piece of advice I saw when I was a beginner was to use
two chess sets for playing through games, one for the game moves and
one for the comments (or perhaps your own analysis). Probably obsolete
now, though, as you can get the computer to analyse for you and then
take you back to the game position.

James
--
Your password must be at least 18770 characters and cannot repeat any of
your previous 30689 passwords.
--- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276304