Can somebody explain to me what this brief chess notation means?

Question

I'm not understanding this:

6...Bg7 7.gxh7+ Kf8 8.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 9.Qg6 (or Qg4) Bxhl

I got Chess on my iPod and it has simulations of classic games. This notation is from Gioachino Greco Vs. Unknown. The game is mostly shown on a chess board, but in explaining why Black made a bad move, this chess notation was given. I'm clueless. Any ideas?

Answer 1

move number six, black, Bishop to g7.

Move Seven, white, pawn on g file takes whatever is on h7.  black, King to f8.

Move 8, white, pawn on h file takes whatever is on g8 and becomes a queen delivering check.  black, King captures the new queen on g8

Move9, white, Queen to g6(or g4). Black, Bishop takes whatever is on h1.

Answer 2

The older "descriptive notation" which sounds like "Pawn to King Four, Knight to Queen's Bishop Three", etc. has been replaced by a new system called Algebraic Notation. If you've ever played "Battleship", the layout is similar.

If you are sitting on White's side of the board, the horizontal rows, called "ranks" (think of soldiers standing in rank) are numbered 1 (the closest to you) through 8 (the farthest from you). The vertical "files" (think of standing in a single file line) are lettered a-h from your left to your right.

If you are sitting on Black's side of the board, it is exactly the opposite. The ranks are numbered 8-1 as they go away from you, and the files are lettered h-a from left to right.  This has the advantage of the rank number not changing depending on whether it's White's or Black's move, but has the disadvantage that, if you haven't played Black for a while, the board looks a little dyslexic.

The pieces are referred to by the capital letter of their first name, with the exception of the Knight, since K was already used for the King.  Thus:

K = King

Q = Queen

R = Rook

B = Bishop

N = Knight

Pawns get no letter; they are simply referred to by the square from which they moved.

If a move has an x in it, it indicates a capture, such as your move 7 where a pawn captures whatever pawn or piece is occupying h7. The + sign after this move indicates check, so you would say it "G takes h7 check".  On move 6, the ellipses mean we're ignoring White's tempo and only looking at Black's move which is Bg7 or "Bishop to g7". On move 8, the hxg8=Q means "h takes g8 and promotes to Queen, check", which may sound unnecessary, but remember that the player who promotes a pawn has the option to promote it to a Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight. Some books use ++ for checkmate, and others use #. I prefer to use # for checkmate and ++ for double-check. Finally, castling Kingside is written as 0-0 and castling Queenside is written as 0-0-0.

Hope this helps.

--Scott

Answer 3

First, all squares on the chessboard have a name, consisting of a letter and a number. The letters give the vertical lines, the numbers the horizontal ones, with a1 being to the lower left of the white player. So the white king starts at e1, the black one at e8.

Now, the general form of brief chess notation is a letter, showing the piece that is being moved, followed by the place it is moved to. Let's go through the moves one by one.

6...Bg7

First, the 6 shows that this is the sixth move. The dots (ellipsis) that we skip the first half of this move. That means, what we actually start with is black's sixth move. Bg7 means that black plays his bishop (B) to g7, that's the square diagonal adjacent to the upper right square of the board (seen from white's perspective).

7 gxh7+. There is no piece shown here (the 'g' is not a piece, because pieces are always shown with capital letters). This means that the move is made by a pawn. This pawn is moving to h7. The x shows that it is capturing a piece there, the g that it is coming from the g-line. Thus, the pawn was standing at g6, in front of the bishop, and now captures a piece (or pawn) at h7, next to the bishop, on the side of the board. Finally the + means that this move is giving check.

7...Kf8 The king is moving to f8, which is the starting position of black's bishop which is now at g7.

8. hxg8=Q+. The same pawn is playing again, and taking a piece at g8. g8 is at the final row, so the pawn gets promoted. The Q shows that it's being promoted to a queen. And it's again check, which is correct, since the newly promoted queen is standing next to the king.

8... Kxg8. The king takes the just promoted queen.

9. Qg6. White's queen is moving to g6, which is the space in front of black's bishop. The (or Qg4) means that the same thing will happen if the queen moves to g4 instead.

9... Bxh1. Black's other bishop now comes into our view. It takes something at h1, which is the square that white's rook on the king side starts (the h is the rightmost column and the 1 shows that we're at white's home row).

Answer 4

It took me a little bit of time to find the game.

[Event "Rome"]

[Site "Rome"]

[Date "1919.??.??"]

[Result "1-0"]

[White "Gioachino Greco"]

[Black "NN"]

1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Bd3 f5 4.exf5 Bxg2 5.Qh5+ g6 6.fxg6 Nf6

7.gxh7 Nxh5 8.Bg6# 1-0

To answer your question, had Black played the line 6... Bg7 (as you quoted) instead of 6... Nf6 he could have survived the attack and even come away in the lead.

In case it's chess notation you don't understand:

6...Bg7 (Black moves the bishop instead of the knight.)

7.gxh7+ Kf8 (White still captures the pawn, but instead of taking with the knight, Black is able to move his king to f8.)

8.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 (White captures the knight and promotes the pawn to a second queen. Black recaptures with the king, while also protecting his rook on h8.)

9.Qg6 (or Qg4) Bxh1 (The white queen moves to a safe square, either g6 or g4. The black bishop captures the rook on h1 and is up the exchange.)

Answer 5

The "USCF" has a full explaination. See this web site, Part VII toward the bottom of the page. Lots of information. GL(good luck)

http://main.uschess.org/content/view/732...