glee: I’m nervous, because I’m not sure how to write out the moves, but if you’d like to play a friendly bout… 
I’m a chess player. We analyse the situation carefully:
- one of my two games has just finished
- a spectator, who has made pleasant contributions to the previous thread, has stepped up to play next
…OK, you’re on!
Hopefully you can find a chess board with the notation along the sides, or perhaps a chess book.
You play White (because MindWanderer did), so it’s your move.
Would you like advice during the game?
Good luck Kythereia. Now I get to watch instead of being in the hotseat. 
Kytheria,
there are two main ways to write moves. Give the initial of the piece (nothing for a pawn), then either give both the square you move from and the square you move to, or just the square you move to.
So your likely first moves are:
e2-e4 (or just e4)
d2-d4 (or just d4)
Ng1-f3 (or just Nf3)
Can I help with anything? 
Just as an addendum to glee’s explanation on moves, there are also some special markers that are good to know when reading chess notation.
Castling:
To castle your king to the right (your right), you write the notation as O-O
If you castle to the opposite direction (passing directly over the queen’s square), it is written O-O-O
I don’t know if you’re already familiar with castling, if not, check this link for an explanation: http://www.chessvariants.org/d.chess/castlefaq.html
If you make a move which places your opponent in check, you add a + to the end of the move. So it might end up looking like Qd1-e2+.
Following with that last one, there is also a way to mark checkmate, and that is to add ++ to the end of the move, Qd1-e2++
If you ever happen to read transcripts from other games, you might see !, !!, ?, ?? or !? then these are notations usually made by the player for his own reference after the game. They are notes about what he thinks of the move during the game, and these are also used by commentators in books about games.
! - good move
!! - excellent move
? - questionable move
?? - obvious blunder
!? - It’s a move which made them nervous and they wanted to mark it for future research.
Sorry if this ends up being overwhelming, just though I’d add to glee’s remarks on how to mark a move.
I’m looking forward to following along!
wanders over for some distraction, tired of watching the cobwebs growing over his board
Queen to Queen’s level 3!
I’ve always wanted to say that…
[Spock]Checkmate.[/Spock]
(Be so good as not to melt all the chessmen.)
Wth my 2320s Style Death Ray? 
I was at an international chess tournament once when some spectators asked me to try out their 3D chess game (based on Star Trek). They’d done an excellent job, with a transparent board and elegant handmade pieces.
They explained the rules - which were clear enough, but meant my 2D experience meant nothing.
Then I was asked to play!
Well I gave it a go, but really had no idea what to do.
the funny thing was that they thought I was calculating in 3D, and greeted every move with intense approval. Since they had no idea what they were doing either, I managed to win the first game.
There was no time for a second - so I have an unbeaten record at Star trek chess!
smooches glee and the rest of the spectators, rejoices
Here goes… crosses fingers
- d4
Kytheria glee
- d4 Nf6
Two points:
-
under Article 15.1 of the Laws of Chess ‘It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever’
-
as it’s you doing the smooching, I hereby waive all my rights!
Of course I’m doing the smooching! more… er… distractions
- d4
- Nf6
- e4
You mean:
- d4 Nf6
- e4
Pairs of moves are numbered, the White move followed by the Black. If you are writing out a sequence of moves and stop part-way to insert a commentary, you continue like this:
- … b5 (if glee were to play b5 at this point, which I doubt)
with … standing in for the missing (already recorded) White move.
Kythereia glee
- d4 Nf6
- e4 Nxe4
Thanks to Malacandra for the clarification.
Kythereia, do have a look at my other chess threads for examples of writing the moves. In this game, my knight just captured your pawn :eek: .
Sadly us nerdy chessplayers are not easily distracted. 
Speaking as a fellow chess player, I must disagree with glee. Even my chess geekiness will take back burner if a woman thrusts herself upon me. I played a friend once and halfway through the game she told me that she got turned on by watching me play chess - true or not, I dropped my Queen.
Hmmmm… purrs, blows a kiss to ronincyberpunk
Chess is very sexy, you know…
Kythereia glee
- d4 Nf6
- e4 Nxe4
- f3
Kythereia glee
- d4 Nf6
- e4 Nxe4
- f3 Nf6
Ah, if only that were true …
… then I could reveal my extensive knowledge of mating positions :eek:
It depends on your degree of geekiness.
I am good at chess.
Chess is not interesting to most women.
Therefore most women are not interested in me. 
The real test comes when you watch the original ‘Thomas Crown Affair’. Steve McQueen is playing chess with Faye Dunaway. She decides to distract him by stretching and showing cleavage. She strokes captured pieces. Finally she sucks the head of a bishop.
Now the question is: like me, can you tell what the position on the board is?
If so, you are a chess geek!
The campus club plays chess in the student center every Friday and a year or so ago Valentine’s day fell on that Friday.
I sat down and began to play, being the talker of the group I began playing and proceeded to lose the game (not on purpose mind you) and I just shrugged and said rather loudly, “Hey, it’s valentine’s day. Everyone deserves to mate today.”
And I swear a girl walking by the table dropper her cup of soda and spilled it all over the floor. It was awesome.