What are your memory systems for chess notations

General Memory Chat
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What are your memory systems for chess notations ?
How would you remember chess notation ?

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chess pieces

  1. pawn
  2. rook
  3. knight
  4. bishop
  5. Queen
  6. King

chess board

  1. a
  2. b
  3. c
  4. d
  5. e
  6. f
  7. g
  8. h

let’s take an example, I guess that will be easy to understand.

Ruy Lopez opening

  1. e4, e5
  2. Nf3, Nc6
  3. Bb5

Now if we change it to our conversations. It will be look like this.

  1. 054, 055
  2. 263, 236
  3. 325

Italian opening : if change the last part of the first opening.
1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bc4

  1. 054, 055
  2. 263, 236
  3. 334

Now you just need to change the numbers into images.

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Just use your number images you already have and track the destination square only.

Place your moves image first then opponents two half moves per locus.

11-18 = a1-a8
21-28 = b1-b8
Etc

I think anyone attempting to memorize chess should first become proficient memorizing random numbers.

As far as which piece to move it should be obvious usually to a chess player and if you find yourself forgetting during recall just add a piece clarifier object at that point instead of preemptively to every move.

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If you already have a 3-digit system then why not add the piece clarifiers per @Rajadodve786 and it will make your journey’s less repetitive.

That said if you don’t already have 3-digit practiced it doesn’t add enough utility to the use case to prefer over 2-digit with no piece clarifier for an average tournament chess player.

You will still need to layer conceptual knowledge on top of these memorized positions to play them when you leave prep and that knowledge will give lots of hints of which specific pieces to move as well as your spaced repetition sessions.

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The key for chess is to memorise the board coordinates of a move’s target square. As @zweb_chess points out, the piece to move will usually be obvious. You can go further by memorising something like algebraic notation using @Rajadodve786’s 3-digit system, which will make the move clear almost all the time.

However there are still rare moves that are ambiguous, e.g. when two knights can move to the same square, and both moves look sensible. This kind of thing happens most often when there is a series of captures on the same square.

This is why I made Picture Notation. Each move is shown unambiguously by a single word. The consonant sounds identify the target square (using the major system), and the number of syllables identifies the piece (using a priority system, ordering candidate pieces from the back rank and queenside). e.g. 1.Nf3 is jam or gym, 1.f3 is gymnast or shampoo.

If you’re interested there’s a tutorial here:

and a conversation here:

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