From: "Majewski, Thomas" <Thomas.Majewski <at> WABCO-AUTO <dot> COM>
Date: 11 nov 2002
Subject: Re: notation

Hi shogi friends,

here is my 2 cents...

I am producing the german shogi magazine for 9 years and have also a large
collection of amateur games.

Some 20 years ago George Hodges produced his shogi magazine in english and
established a notation, which could be understood easily by westerners (most
of them propably used to chess notation).
This went like this: 1.P7f P3d 2.Bx2h+ Sx2h 3.B'4e G6a-5b etc.
The ' to indicate drops was (later?) added by the *. The * is especially
usefull when using computers.

The next <big> shogi magazine in europe was the ' 81'  of the Dutch Shogi
Association, which has been run by Reijer Grimbergen for several years. He
used the same notation and I used it in the german shogi magazine too, as I
was also influenced by the Hodges magazines (and by the ' 81 ' as well).
So this kind of notation is widely used in europe (and USA as well !?) and
people know it well. Next Tony Hosking produced his shogi books and used a
different kind of notation:
1.P76 P33 2.Bx22+ Sx22 3.B*45 G(61)52 ...
I discussed this kind of notation with him and he has a point.
A) If western people are playing through game scores (kifu) from japanese
books ore magazines the score looks very similar to Tony's way.
B) It is easier to write down the moves of ones own game by using numbers
only instead of numbers and letters. When using numbers and letters people
like to have them written beside the board. Some of the boards we are using
in tournaments in germany have the numbers and letters written on the board
in pencil.
I have to add, that it is far easier to type in a score from a badly written
scoresheet, if the player was using numbers only. Some players mix up the
bottom left corner as 11 (a1) instead of 99 (9i). This is pretty much of a
nuisance, when typing in the score.

Of course, it is a problem to get rid of habits, meaning even though I
consider Tonys system slightly better, I have not used it for my own games
so far. I am always afraid to make a mistake.
And the software we are using in europe to produce the gamescores (GSDB,
Kisei etc.) use the George Hodges style. This is another obstacle. We would
have to change this first. Maybe I am going to try it some time in the
future.

One last word to the different letters for the pieces in different
languages. In chess people use different letters in different countries and
this not a real problem, so wy should it be in shogi.

Thomas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: yoda mitsuo [SMTP:yoda-mitsuo <at> MSD <dot> BIGLOBE <dot> NE <dot> JP]
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 8:23 PM
> To:   SHOGI-L <at> TECHUNIX <dot> TECHNION <dot> AC <dot> IL
> Subject:      notation
>
> Dear Shogi friends,
>
> I would like to know which type of notation is commonly used overseas.
>
> By way of example...
>
> 1 P76 P34  2 P26 P84 3 P25 P85 4 G78 G32 5 P24 Px24 6 Rx24(side pawn
> opening)
>
> This is what I only know except for Japanese way of doing things as
> $B"%#7O;Jb (B
>  $B"$#3;MJb (B  $B"%#2O;Jb (B  $B"$#8#4Jb (B  $B"%#2#5Jb!%!% (B
>
> It would interest me to hear your views and opinions.
>
> Nobumitsu Yoda


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