Chess Training: Read This First

Dear Chess Player,

Thanks for subscribing to my 11 part email course "Openings and End Game
Strategies!"

You should have already received part one of the course in your inbox, but before you read it, please take note of the following IMPORTANT information.

This course contains many chess board game diagrams all in the form of ASCII
line drawings. ASCII is universal, and is easily viewed no matter what email
program you are using. Please save this email for future reference.

The following is a key to the diagrams:
For chess pieces,

R = Rook

Kt = Knight

B = Bishop

Q = Queen

K = King

P = Pawn

Black pieces have a # symbol to the left of them, while
white pieces have a ^ symbol to the left of them. For example,
#B is the Black bishop, while ^B is the
white bishop. #Kt is the black knight, while ^Kt is the white knight. This will
let the reader instantly tell by sight which pieces in the ASCII chess diagrams are
black and which are white. Those who find these diagrams hard to read should feel
free to set up them up on a game board using the actual pieces.

Some of the chess game analysis is also written in what is
commonly know as "descriptive notation." Here is a good
explanation of "descriptive notation" from Mark Weeks
at http://chess.about.com/library/ble21brd.htm. In this excerpt
he is comparing it to algebraic notation, another chess
notation method:

"There are two main differences between algebraic and
descriptive notation. Thefirst difference is that the files
are named according to the piece on that file in the initial

position. The second difference is that the squares have
different notations from the White and Black sides.

Here's a diagram showing the two character notation for each square on the board.

In this diagram, the square in the lower left is

'QR1' for White and 'QR8' for Black, where 'QR' means the 'Queen's Rook'.

The square in the upper right is 'KR8' for White and 'KR1' for
Black, where 'KR' means the 'King's Rook'.
As in algebraic notation, the move is a combination of the
moving piece plus the square to which it is moving, separated
by a dash ('-'). The move 'Q-K4' means that a Queen is moving
to the square K4; 'Q-KR4' means that a Queen is moving
to the square KR4. In the second example, if there is no possibility
that the Queen can move to QR4, 'Q-R4' is sufficient. In older
literature, 'Kt' is often used instead of 'N' to denote the Knight.

Descriptive notation is usually less compact than algebraic notation,
but it does have a few advantages. For example, it is easier to
refer to the symmetric qualities of the board. The phrase 'Rook's
file' refers to both the 'QR' and 'KR' files. The phrase '7th rank'
refers to the 7th rank for both White and Black from their
respective sides of the board.

Castling is noted exactly as in algebraic notation, O-O and O-O-O. Pawn promotion is similar. The move 'P-K8=Q' means that the Pawn is being promoted
to a Queen.

Ambiguous moves are generally distinguished by indicating whether the queenside or kingside piece is moving. Instead of'N-B3', we write 'QN-B3' or 'KN-B3' to show which Knight is moving. If it is no longer simple to determine whether a

piece was initially on the queenside or kingside, the square from which
the piece is moving can be entered, for example, 'N/2-K4' or

'R/QB3-K3'.

A capture is always indicated by an 'x', followed by the symbol

of the piece being captured. The moves 'BxN', 'BxKN', or 'BxN/7'

are all valid.

Check is always indicated by a '+' or by 'ch'. If a Knight

moves to B6 and gives check, this can be written 'N-B6+', or

'N-B6ch'.

The e.p. move is always written with a trailing 'e.p.', for example, 'PxP e.p.'

or 'KPxP e.p.' "

Chad Kimball

P.S. This is an excerpt from my 14 Volume Chess Training Book Set
guaranteed to dramatically improve your game! It contains 2,213 pages
of tested and proven chess tactics.

To read more about this valuable resource,

go to http://www.arborgroup.org/chess