Chess Notation - History

History

The notation for chess moves evolved slowly, as these examples show. The last is in algebraic chess notation, the others show the evolution of descriptive chess notation and use spelling and notation of the period.

1614: The white king commands his owne knight into the third house before his owne bishop.

1750: K. knight to His Bishop's 3d.

1837: K.Kt. to B.third sq.

1848: K.Kt. to B's 3rd.

1859: K. Kt. to B. 3d.

1874: K Kt to B3

1889: KKt -B3

1904: Kt-KB3

1946: N-KB3

Modern: Nf3

A text from Shakespeare's time uses complete sentences to describe moves, for example, "Then the black king for his second draught brings forth his queene, and placest her in the third house, in front of his bishop's pawne" - which we would now write as 2 ... Qf6. The great 18th-century player Philidor used an almost equally verbose approach in his influential book "Analyse du jeu des Échecs", for example, "The king's bishop, at his queen bishop's fourth square."

Rather surprisingly, algebraic chess notation was used by Philipp Stamma (c. 1705–55) in an almost fully developed form before the now obsolete descriptive chess notation evolved. The main difference between Stamma's system and the modern system is that Stamma used "p" for pawn moves and the original file of the piece ("a" through "h") instead of the initial letter of the piece. But Philidor defeated Stamma in a match, so his writings had more influence and the descriptive system based on his approach was dominant for a long time. Algebraic notation became dominant in the 20th century, although it did not become popular in the English-speaking countries until the 1970s.