Descriptive notation

Descriptive Chess Notation, also called Descriptive Notation or English Notation, was at one time the most popular notation for recording Chess games. It is not used often today (most people today use Algebraic Chess Notation), but is still important for understanding older textbooks on Chess.

Each move in descriptive chess notation is either a special castling symbol (O-O for a kingside castle or O-O-O for a queenside castle, as with algebraic notation), or by the following sequence: piece name, "-" (no capture) or "x" (capture), its final square at the end of the move, and special indicators if any. The piece names are K (King), Q (Queen), R (Rook), B (Bishop), Kt (Knight), and P (Pawn); note that these are similar to algebraic notation except for the Knight and Pawn. Special indicators include e.p. (en passant), Ch (Check), and Mate (Checkmate).

The primary difference between algebraic and descriptive notation is how squares are specified. The squares are identified by what piece originally starts there (using the adjectives "Queen's" and "King's" to disambiguate the side), followed by how many squares from that player's perspective. Thus, when White is playing, algebraic notation's square "a1" in descriptive notation would be spoken as "Queen's Rook 1" and written as "QR1" in descriptive notation. a1 through h1 would be written as QR1, QKt1, QB1, Q1, K1, KB1, KKt1, and KR1. Note that name for the same square has a different representation depending on whether the player is Black or White; K4 for White is K5 for Black.

Thus, moving the King's pawn forward two squares would be written as "e4" in algebraic notation, and as "P-K4" in descriptive notation.

Algebraic notation has the advantage of having a shorter notation, and having the same name for the same location regardless of player.