Can someone explain this notation?

It is Tarrasch's annotated games actually

Its good ole descriptive notation.  I love thoe books!  Lots of verbiage, and no chess engine crap.

yeah, but how to interpret the notation?

P-K4 = Pawn to Kings square 4 = e4

N-KB3 = Kings knight to the third square on the bishop file = Nf3

R-Q2 = Rook moving to the 2nd square on the Queen file = Rd2

P = Pawn

K = King

Q = Queen

R = Rook

N = Knight

B = Bishop

1 = whites first rank

8 = blacks 8th rank

I checked on Wikipedia and they seem to have a nice article on 'Descriptive Notation' that may fill in a few gaps. This is the older notation style that I used to see in books from the 1960s and 70s. The pages you show are using english piece names.

I was wondering if there might be a website that does conversion from Descriptive to Algebraic to allow conversion into a .pgn file for use in most of the chess software programs.

Some books you'll see a little drawing of the piece instead of the letter (pictorial notation), which more inclusive since language doesn't matter quite as much. The roman letters representing the files are still there, however.

WOW

What on earth is  9.Kt-K5 in your picture??

I haven't heard of a Kt.

Are they talking about a pawn going to e5?

They can't be talking about the king going to e5 what on earth. I'm so confused.

You took a screen shot at move 9 and not move 1.

What on earth is a Kt.

Knight- The knight was either represented as "N", or at times "Kt"

Thanks you I did not know that.

I wonder why they had it labeled with both N or Kt.

Well than that makes some sense move 9 is Ne5.

It is known as "Descriptive" notation.  It's a notation that was used back in the 50s before Algebraic Notation was ever known.

Here's how it works:

1) The numerical portion of each move is in relation to the player making the move.  So, what you know of as the 7th rank in Algebraic is "7" for White's moves, but "2" for Black's moves.

Next, you put the minimal information possible.  If only 1 of a certain kind of piece can go to a square, only the Piece letter, and not a descripter, is given.  The Files are not A thru H, but rather QR (Queen's Rook), QN (Queen's Knight), QB (Queen's Bishop), Q (Queen), K (King), KB (King's Bishop), KN (King's Knight), and KR (King's Rook).

Captures are piece type captures piece type.

Castling is spelt out, "Castles"

So take a look at the following diagram, and below that I am describing moves for each player:

Ok, so let's pretend it's White to move.

Let's say White wants to move a pawn.

If he moves the Rook pawn, he has only 1 rook pawn.  There is no need to clarify beyond "P-R3", meaning he moves his pawn to what is h3 in algebraic.  There is no other "P-R3" possible, so 1.P-R3.

Let's say instead he moves the c-pawn to c4.  That would be 1.P-B4 because he can't move the f-pawn to the 4th rank (his other Bishop file).

However, let's say he moves the b-pawn to b4.  Now here you have a g-pawn on g2, and this would also hold true if the g-pawn were on g3.  There are TWO PAWNS that can go to "Knight 4", so you have to clarify.  To make the move b4, it would be "P-QN4", while the move g4 would be "P-KN4" (or Pawn to Queen Knight 4 and Pawn to King Knight 4).

Now, going away from the diagram, capturing is still with an x.  Let's say White has a pawn on a3, and Black has a Knight on b4.  Let's say no other White pawn attacks the Knight, and no other Knight of Black's is attacked by a White pawn.  Let's say there is another Knight that can only be taken by a Bishop.  The move axb4 in descriptive would be "PxN".

Now, let's say a pawn is on a3, another on c3, and a Black Knight on b4.  Now you have to clarify, "BPxN" or "RPxN" (for Bishop pawn takes Knight or Rook pawn takes Knight).

Let's say instead that the piece captured is imbiguous.  Go back to the diagram.  The White Bishop can take 2 different Black Knights.  You clarify which one you take by the description of the Knight.  You don't have to remember which Knight started on which square.  The one closer to the Queenside is the Queen's Knight (even if that's the knight that started on g8) and the one closer to the h-file is the King's Knight, so in the diagram above, it would be BxQN for Bxb8 and BxKN for Bxe5.

Now, let's say you have Black Knights on c6 and f3, and White pawns on d4, e5, a5, and h4.  Here you must clarify both if White captures a pawn.  You have:

QNxQP for Ncxd4, QNxKP for Ncxe5, KNxQP for Nfxd4, and KNxKP for Nfxe5.  As for the two outer pawns, it's NxQRP (since NxP and NxRP are too ambiguous) for Nxa5 and NxKRP for Nxh4.  Note that "KN" and "QN" are not necessary because only 1 Knight can take the pawn on h3, not both.

Lastly, again, Black's moves are from Black's perspective.  So let's say there are no White pieces or pawns on h4 or a5, and Black has Knights on c6 and f3.  You put the least possible descriptions.  The move Nc6-a5 can be written as simply "N-R4" as only 1 knight can only go to one of the two "R4" squares.  The Queen's Knight goes to a5.  The other knight can't make it to h5 (what is the other "Rook 4" for Black).  So no ambiguity.  To move the other knight to h4, it's "N-R5".  Since only 1 Knight to can to "Rook 5", no further clarification is needed.  It's Nh4 since no knight can get to a4.

Also, if one of them is a capture, and the other is not, no clarification is needed as "x" is always used for any capture.

Therefore, let's say you have BNc5, BNf5, WPh4

To play 1...Nh6, you must clarify as Black can get to either "Rook 3" square with his Knight.  So KN-R3.  1...Na6 is of course 1.QN-R3.

To play 1...Na4, no clarification is needed as the other way would be a capture, so 1.N-R5 is sufficient as doing it with the f-Knight would be 1.NxP, NOT 1.N-KR5, because it's a capture.

So 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.cxd5 exd5 would be:

1.P-Q4 P-Q4

2.P-QB4 P-K3

3.N-QB3 P-QB3

4.PxP KPxP

I suppose I will never really master Desciptive Notation.

I guess Algebraic Notation has kind of taken me over lol.

I guess it mainly has to do with the fact I never really been around Desciptive Notation. Only started chess recently and most chess sites use Algebraic which appears to be very dominate. I know chess.com has a function which allows a person to change the notation to disciptive if they wanted to.

However, I guess I have never placed any value into mastering desciptive notation.

I always seem to try and work on other area's of chess and kind of used Algebraic. I mean I know Algebraic fairly well which I believe is all that is required is one form of Notation in chess.

I suppose the only time Desciptive notation could be helpful is if you are reading old book or article which shows only Desciptive notation on it.

However, I often do wonder can't a person copy and paste the notation in the book into like an analysis board than have it translate the text into Algebraic Notation?

I guess that would be cheating HA HA. Well not cheating as in against the rules but cheating yourself lol.

Here is a link to a converter:

http://www.abdelnauer.de/js/notation.htm

Here's one instance where it pays to be an old geezer. As I was born in 1951, all of my early experience in reading chess books was descriptive notation. I will admit that I never really liked it, but I knew (and know) it. When algebraic entered the scene, I embraced it and never looked back.

It's nice to be "bilingual," though, and I encourage all young players to learn descriptive as soon as possible. It opens up a world of chess literature that you simply would never access without it.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your question!

Descriptive notation is English, having evolved from the time of Staunton, when moves were actually written out: "1. Knight to King's Bishop three," which was fun when later white castled and moved his R to e1, it was written, "Rook to King's square."  By Steinitz time, it was abbreviated "R to K sq." and by the glorious 1890's, when the golden age of chess set in, books on chess and chess magazines were well established, and the notation was abbreviated, "1. Kt-KB3." 

In the 1900's, English Descriptive remained the dominant notation in the English speaking world until around 1975, by which time the influence of other European countries, notably the impact of Chess Informant, caused first Great Britain, and later the USA, to use the algebraic square formulation.  Some old Chess Life & Review issues featured both notations on the same games, just to teach the plebes how to do it.

Outside chess, for example in measurements, the USA is still on the old English systems of ounces, pounds, inches and miles, rather than the metric system used in the rest of the world (or in science class).

this post makes me feel really old. I love descriptive notation.

I grew up with descriptive notation and fought the good fight to stick to it after algebraic became the norm. But I finally gave up about twenty years ago and converted. Algebraic is so much simpler.

But I'm still fluent in my "native tongue."

Chessmicky,

I was going to say the same thing. That's like an American never having seen Spanish before, or a mathematician never having seen polar coordinates before. Descriptive notation is still better than algebraic notation in some ways, and good authors like Pandolfini use both, depending on exigencies.

Let's clear up a misconception. Algebraic Notation has been around since 1737 in England although it never gained many fans there or in France. Russia and Germany used it exclusively at least since the start of the 19th century and probably long before. There have been many forms of Descriptive Notation used throughout the years.

Great that bat girl cleared up that algebraic notation has existed for a long time. Here in Denmark algebraic notation is the type that has always been used. Descriptive notation is just confusing and annoying , well for me at least. Algebraic notation is very simple and easy to read.