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Betza notation (extended). The powerful XBetza extension to Betza's funny notation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Bob Greenwade wrote on Mon, Feb 26, 2024 06:46 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 06:08 PM:

Good question. It makes less sense to exclude it here. OTOH, normally this square has to be empty, or it would have blocked the move.

Not if the move is a leap. Imagine, for example, a Flame-ingo with [CX;KD].Or, probably more to point, a piece with K[T;K] -- or should that be K[T;abK]?

Well, I tried to generalize it. But I think I blew it, because I was thinking in terms of steps rather than moves when I wrote it.For the conventional 'orthogonal planar move', which we would write here as [vR.sR], the point is that the steps set up a grid (in this case containing every board square), and that you only have to consider what is on that grid. But (on an empty board) every square of the grid could be reached by zero-or-one move of the first kind plus zero-or-one move of the second kind. The area spanned by the move (which must be empty) consists of all squares that could be reached by fewer or shorter moves of both kinds.

Yeah, I was thinking Rook/Bishop when I was reading it, not Wazir/Ferz. This explanation is much better, and reflects what I recall.

I used the dot because I saw it as a multiplication. A comma could also be suitable, if you see it as coordinates.

I'm actually seeing the planar move as a simultaneous two-way move; that's why I was suggesting the ampersand. (Another symbol that makes sense to my brain is the slash -- though it's also one that I think would probably confuse the computer!)