I have 2 questions as I learn chess notation,

the first is so basic but has me confused.... the second is probably more nuanced.

1) when they tell you it's #30, is that just one players move or both players? i.e. is white odd moves and black even moves? or do they each get a move at #30?...... a bit bizarre I have to ask this. but the chess notation I'm trying to get through is really consdensed and seems kinda garbled... which leads into question #2?

2) is there a standard for chess notation for "what if my opponent does X vs. Y vs. Z" on his move?..........

FYI I am using Chess Tactics, Volume 1 by Carsten Hansen.. I have previously only looked at a few FT weekend chess puzzles....

thx in advance ............ p.s. in the time writing this, I've figured a bit more out..

Each move number represents a pair of moves, one each for black and white. So you will read for example, "white's 12th move was a blunder." Or "black's 30th move was brilliant."

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Not sure how to answer the second question. If the notes are in English, it will be obvious. If you mean some kind of symbolic annotations, then there is a standard set. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ches...tation_symbols.

Good luck! Studying tactics is a great way to improve. Just don't neglect the endgame study, too

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Both players get a move 1, move 2, move 59, etc.

Notation for specifically Black's 1st move is something like 1. .. c5

Chess notation is written in a way to make it easier for serious players to visualize the moves. I’m not a good chess player but if I read the first 5 moves no matter what they are I can visualize where all the pieces are. Chess notation tells you a story from the beginning of the game.

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6

Means that whites move was 1.e4 and then blacks first move was 1.e5 in response. Then white moved their knight to Nf3 on their second move and then black responded with knight to c6. If your visualizing all the moves from the beginning it’s easier this way because you can see the move of the white pieces and the response move by the black pieces as 1 move.

I am learning chess notation too in the sense that I am getting better at visualizing the moves and in dense books on kindle , it is often hard to follow, especially in chess books that are poorly written. It always helps to play it on a physical board. A lot of times in chess books they play through moves they consider standard. So they’ll be like 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3

Then they will stop and consider a bunch of alternatives so you have to hold that point in your mind or on a board and recognize since they only revealed whites 5 move the other analysis will start on blacks move.

So they’ll be like ....a6 (sets up najdorf) 6. Bb4 e6?

And then on the next page they’ll be like .... g6! And you have to remember that both pages stem from the original position after the first 4 full moves and whites 5th move. If you read this a lot it becomes more natural mostly because a lot of games are similar and you’ll start grouping the moves together more and more like a high level player. If you play And study enough you’ll start to see why the authors think some moves can all be grouped together and then some moves require deeper analysis because YOU will group the moves that way.

I agree with your post.

And with some practice, one realizes that 6.Bb4 is a typo, b4 being a black square only accessible to white Queenside bishop which still stands on c1. You probably intended 6. Bc4, leading to the Sozin attack.

For 2) authors will often put what ifs in parentheses/italics in books, while computer's will also point out multiple different lines in the notation by suggesting different moves before continuing onto the next position.

Doing it during live games is typically against the rules as the only writing you're supposed to be doing/reading is what has already happened on the board.

If you're playing online with rapid/correspondence you're allowed to write notes on the side of what you want to play by saying if X. ... d7, X+1. Ke2 else if X. ... Ke7, X+1. Kf1 or however else you want to do it. Most times people won't be reading it which is the nice part.

I learned descriptive chess notation thanks to having old chess books at home.
Uh no I don't own them, my old man does.

Some chess players write their moves in one notation and never change.
Robert Bobby Fischer never bothered to use Algebraic notation and always stuck to descriptive notation.
I guess once you're used to one of doing things, it's hard to think of changing if it works fine.

It's fair, but can be a bit confusing as it's always from the pov of the mover, not just from one side. So people could often confuse something like R-R6 could be Ra3 or Ra6 when writing the move down as either side.

That is possible if readers don't realise that descriptive notation is written from the viewpoint of the player.
R - R6 from White would be Ra6/h6.
R - R6 from Black would be Ra3/h3.

Hello Omuzq

I'm pretty sure I know someone who uses the same avatar on MU.

Yep, I'm the same person (Jaleb)

Bingo.
Your avatar was easy to recognise.
Anyway you might have seen me on MU, albeit with a different avatar than used here.