From: Reg Tanaban <reg418 <at> HOTMAIL <dot> COM>
Date: 9 nov 2002
Subject: Re: notation

My personal preference is with the numbers, e.g., "P76", since it's closer
to the original Japanese notational system (which uses Arabic numerals along
one axis and kanji numeral along the other), so that it's easier to
cross-reference Japanese shogi literature, and also it's easier for me to
visualize the board (when I did 2-D graphs in math, they were both numerical
axes; not alphabetical). Also, having had a friend in Japan videotape for me
a bunch of those NHK shogi speed tournaments, I got used to hearing "hichi
roku fu" ("seven six pawn") etc.

I'm not sure why the alphabetical system was adopted; just the historical
circumstance of having chess players interesting themselves in shogi, and
trying to create a more "chess-like" notational system? I play chess and
like the algebraic notational system, but as applied in shogi the numbers
and alphabets are going in different directions, so while I can visualize
the chess board with algebraic notation, I've about given up doing that on
shogi.

Then again, I find notation like "G7h" confusing because my first impulse is
still to think of "G" as "Gin" - "Silver" in Japanese - and not "G" for
"Gold"! Again, probably from those NHK shogi video tapes with "hichi hachi
gin" ("seven eight silver"), etc.

Good thing we have those shogi board applets! Now if only there was a way to
play out some of those long analyses in the notes over the applet board,
problems in notational differences will become a very minor point, at least
for me.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Andrews" <whitetiger123 <at> JUNO <dot> COM>
To: <SHOGI-L <at> TECHUNIX <dot> TECHNION <dot> AC <dot> IL>
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: notation


> My preference is for the notation with the letters eg. P7f.
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