In our chess club, we’ve got a couple of longtime players, older guys, who’d like to step up their game and are willing to study but are not down with the algebraic notation. They still use descriptive. Is anyone aware of any chess software that offers output in descriptive notation? All I have is Fritz 8/Chessbase, which offers long algebraic, standard algebraic and figurine algebraic. Even a PGN-to-descriptive conversion program would be fine – I could use Fritz to generate the PGN.
I don’t know of any programs in desriptive notation. However, there are still plenty of chess books out there in descriptive, especially in the various library systems. Maybe one of those books could be of use.
Larry Cohen
Chessbase can input and output in descriptive. Open a game and go to . You’ll see three radio buttons, for 1.d4, 1.d2-d4, and 1.P-Q4.
In my 2009 Light Premium version the same combination can be reached directly from the main database window (Tools → Options → Notation tab.)
And in addition to Descriptive/SAN/LAN/FAN, it also has an option for ICCF notation.
Ironically, it has no option to display in Computer Notation. (Though I have learned that it will readily accept a paste of a game in CN and format to whatever option one has chosen.) It also has no choices for Gringmuth Notation, either. 
I’m not sure what you’re using, but it’s not Chessbase 8 or 10. Some version of Fritz, perhaps? If so, you simply have the wrong software.
That’s from Chessbase 8.
I bought the software package under the name Play Chess With Deep Fritz – Grandmaster Deluxe. The engine is Deep Fritz 8, and the About page lists ChessBase and Viva Media as publishers. The game contains a database of 750,000 games in a directory titled …\ChessBase\Bases\ and a file called Database.cbh; .cbh is a ChessBase database extension. Therefore, I assumed that what I was using was in fact some form of ChessBase.
OK, so since any form of ChessBase sold on its own costs at least $150, is there a PGN-to-descriptive converter out there?
I know this isn’t the reply you want to see, but learning algebraic just isn’t that hard or time consuming. 90% is knowing the first letter of the pieces and the names of the squares. Since nearly everything published for the past 20 (30?) years has used it, limiting yourself to descriptive notation means excluding ECO, the Informants, New In Chess, Chess Life, … as study materials.
And yes, there are lots of books still available in descriptive but I assert it pays to be bi-lingual, chess-wise.
Regards,
John
Agreed.
Please come to our club and try your pitch out on the old guys. Let me know how it works out for you.
I also agree. Some other aids: king is emporer, queen is dame, bishops associate with other church officials, cardnials and friars, and all knights should be bold and gallent. Also, files a-d are already pretty easy, memorize the location of one of the kingside files and use that as a reference.
FWIW, my letter to Chess Life (Apr 1968) helped start the conversion from DN to AN, and I may be the first person to use those initials.
Since we’re sharing…
CB Light 2009, Windows 7
And I just realized that CB actually probably could output Computer Notation. Set it for Long Algebraic format and then replace all the piece names with blanks? (one could do spaces but then there would be an extra space character between the period and the originating square…)
CB Light is a free download, and if all you want is to convert games from algebraic to descriptive, the limit on database size shouldn’t be a problem
Not quite. Mine was $75, and purchased quite legally. But you have to know where to go to obtain it for that price and be willing to do without big bases and player encyclopedias. But as John Hillery points out, there is Light for those who don’t want to shell out for Light Premium.
You might also check into whether or not Chess Assistant or SCID can handle that change. I thought that U Pitt once had converters, but I don’t see one specific to PGN → Descriptive.
ETA: Just thought of a way it could be done, and the way I’d do it. Build a Word or OpenOffice macro to handle each of the conversion steps by find and replace. It would be a big project, as there are multiple finds and replaces that would have to be done. But it could be done. The biggest problem, though, is that Word is awfully tetchy about opening unsigned macros, so you’d either have to have a certing authority or drop security levels to allow all macros to run. I’ll post the conversion steps routine later.
So, here’s how I would do it.
Each step except the first and last involve multiple iterations of find-and-replace.
0. Open a document and begin a macro record or macro build.
1. F/R all period spaces to period. (". "=".")
Example: "1. e4 e5" becomes "1.e4 e5"
2. 64 F/Rs to replace "<space>+<char>+<coordinate> with "<space>+<same char>+<equivalent black descriptive square>".
Example: "2.Nc3 Nf6" would become "2. Nc3 NKB3" when the iteration for f6 is reached. "4. a3 Bf6" would become "4. a3 BKB3".
3. 64 F/Rs to replace "<space>+<coordinate>" with "'P-'+<equivalent black descriptive square>".
Example: "1.e4 e5" becomes "1.e4 P-K4" when the e5 iteration is reached.
3. 64 F/Rs to replace ".+<coordinate>" with "'P-'+<equivalent white descriptive square>".
Example: "1.e4 P-K4" becomes "1.P-K4 P-K4" when the e4 iteration is reached.
4. 64 F/Rs to replace "<coordinate>" with equivalent white descriptive square.
Example: "2.Nc3 NKB3" becomes "2.NQB6 NKB3" when the c3 iteration is reached.
5. 5 F/Rs to replace <piece name> with "<piece name>+'-'" - do for Rook, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King. Pawns are already covered.
Example: "2.NQB6 NKB3" becomes "2.N-QB6 N-KB3" when the N iteration is reached.
6. F/R all periods to period+space. ("."=". ")
Example: "1.P-K4 P-K4 2.N-QB6 N-KB3" becomes "1. P-K4 P-K4 2. N-QB6 N-KB3"At this point all the notation should be converted from SAN to Descriptive. The last step is the hardest for me to figure out, if necessary and wanted: How do you get the line from flowing text into individual column/row. (If that’s what you want, but with descriptive you probably would.)
Probably one could build an intermediate step 5a/b/c to get every + converted to a +. Convert all remaining spaces to hard returns. Then convert the back to a space. You’d have to account for castling in that, too.
As I said, a massive macro to be built. 363 individual find-replaces to record or write as a macro (or script) without the intermediate steps. It might be possible to automate a chunk of that process (e.g. some kind of table lookup for the actual coordinate-descriptive conversions?) But it ought to do the trick, and would work on every PGN file AFAICT.
If scripting, one could probably read and parse the PGN file per move, then determine what to do to convert it. But I’ve had a lot more work building macros than building script parsers.
This works. Thanks.
Does anybody know of any chess software that supports Smythescript notation?
Bill Smythe
If those old guys, are like an old friend of mine from Lawton Ok. No amount of pitching is going to change their mind. I have come to believe he is stuck (at least in his mind) in a time frame/era more pleasant and comfortable to him. It is the one thing he has control over, that this fast paced world can not force him to change, he enjoys “his brand” of chess. 
Just a thought
I am on the side of “older” when it comes to chess players, and of course grew up learning descriptive. So I am “bilingual” now, with chess books in both “tongues” (LOL) - yet fewer and fewer are appearing in descriptive. I agree with the assertion that algebraic is easy to use, even though I do prefer reading in descriptive. But I do use algebraic all the time in my games, now, for two simple reasons: (1) it is increasingly becoming dominant and I am sure (before too long) will be the only language of chess; (2) if used correctly (which is easy to do), generates game files that can be transported seamlessly to different readers for display and analysis by others. In other words, it is transportable in a way that descriptive isn’t.
I believe (my thinking only - I could be wrong) that the latter feature, transportability, exists largely because algebraic notation increased in popularity during the computer age - and thus was propogated with a more clearly established consistency between users. On the other hand, while there is no reason a descriptive system couldn’t be universally consistent - it simply isn’t so. This system is older and “matured” before the computer age, so that people use many different conventions in writing descriptive notation. (Even as far as seeing ‘Kt’ in some texts instead of ‘N’.) Thus it is not as electronically transportable as algrebraic - not even close.
Com’on, guys, it’s very easy to learn this. Similarly we should have ‘gone metric’ long ago, but resist it for no good reason. The use of algebraic notation in chess is a much simpler transition - even trivial.
You overlooked the Rooks. Let’s see… what could be used? ah-HA!