jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (09/28/84)
>Opening: >White: Anatoly Karpov >Black: Garri Kasparov > >1 P-Q4 N-KB3 >2 P-QB4 P-K3 >3 N-KB3 P-QN3 >4 P-KN3 B-R3 >5 P-N3 P-N5 ch <---- B-N5 ch >6 B-Q2 B-K2 > >It was printed wrong in our paper too. I guess this strengthens the stand >of algebraic - RATS. Not at all! The two moves in question are: descriptive algebraic 5 ... P-N5 ch vs. 5 ... b4 ch or 5 ... B-N5 ch vs. 5 ... Bb4 ch In both cases, the first move is clearly illegal. In descriptive notation the typographical error was a character substitution, in algebraic notation the same bad move could have been printed because of a dropped character. I don't think that any case can be made that algebraic is any more error- tolerant than descriptive - neither has much built-in redundancy. Both are ambiguous in similar ways too (if two pieces of the same type can move to the same square for example). As far as I am concerned, the main difference is commonality of usage and what you're familiar with.