Notation for Recording Arimaa Games
- The pieces are indicated using upper or lower case letters to specify the piece color and piece type. Upper case letters are used for the white pieces and lower case letters are used for the black pieces. For example, E means white Elephant and h means black Horse. The types of pieces are: Elephant, Camel, Horse, Dog, Cat and Rabbit. The first letter of each is used in the notation, except in the case of Camel the letter m (for black) or M (for white) is used.
- Each square on the board is indicated by the column and row. The lower case letters a to h are used to indicate the column and the numbers 1 to 8 are used to indicate the rows. The square a1 must be at the bottom left corner of the board for white.
- Each players move is recorded on a separate line. The line starts with the move number followed by the color of the side making the move. For example 3w means move 3 for white; this would be followed by 3b which is move 3 for black.
- The initial placement of the pieces is recorded by indicating the piece and the square on which it is placed. For example Da2 means the white Dog is placed on square a2.
- The movement of the pieces is recorded by indicating the piece, the square from which it moves followed by the direction in which it moved. The directions are north, south, east and west with respect to the white player. For example, Ea3n means the white elephant on a3 moves north (to square a4). The notation hd7s means that the black horse on square d7 moves south (to square d6).
- Steps which are skipped are left blank. See move 3w in the example below where only three steps are taken and the last step is skipped.
- When a piece is trapped and removed from the board it is recorded by using an x to indicate removal. For example cf3x means the black Cat on square f3 is removed. When a piece is trapped as a result of a push, the removal is recorded before the step to complete the push. For example: rb3e rc3x Hb2n.
- When a player resigns the word 'resigns' is placed for the players move. If a player loses because the opponents weakest piece has reached their first row then the word 'lost' is placed for the players move. If the players agree to a draw then the word 'draw' is used in place of the move.
- If a move is taken back the word 'takeback' is placed for the move and the move count of the next move is that of the previous move.
The following example shows the Arimaa notation used to record the moves of a game.
1w Ra2 Rb2 Mc2 Dd2 ... 1b ra7 rb7 rc7 rd7 ... 2w Ra2n Ra3e Rb3n Rb4e 2b ra7s ra6s ra5e rb5e 3w Dd2n Dd3n Mc2e Rc4s Rc3x 3b rc7s rc5e rc6x rd5e re5s 4w takeback 3b takeback 3w Rb2n Rb3n Rb4n 3b ... ... 16b resigns- The 7 tags from the PGN (Portable Game Notation) format (as well as other tags) used in Chess can be used prior to the recording of the moves. These are Event, Site, Date, Round, White, Black and Result. But the format is simply the tag name followed by a : and space character followed by the tag value. A blank line separates the tags from the move list. All tags are optional.
- Here is a sample recording of a game:
Event: Casual Game Site: Cleveland, OH USA Date: 1999.01.15 Round: ? White: Aamir Syed Black: Omar Syed Result: 1-0 1w ... 1b ... 2w ... 2b ... ... 16b resigns- A tag which requires multiple lines should have the string -=+=- after the tag name. All lines until a line that begins with this same string are considered to be the value of the tag. For example:
Chat: -=+=- 2b White: hi, how are u 2b Black: fine, thanks -=+=-The 2b just indicates that this chat was done when it was move 2b (blacks second move).
Notation for Recording Arimaa Positions
- The white color pieces are shown in upper case letters and black color pieces are shown in lower case letters.
- The assignment of letters is the first letter of the piece name, except in the case of the Camel the letter m or M is used.
- The position file should simply be laid out as the board would appear with square a1 at the bottom left corner.
- The rows and columns of the board must be labeled and the board must be framed with - and | characters.
- Spaces are used to indicate empty squares.
- X or x can be used to mark the trap squares when a piece is not on it. But marking the trap squares is optional and not required.
- Here is a sample position file:
7w Da1n Cc1n +-----------------+ 8| r r r r | 7| m h e c | 6| r x r r x r | 5| h d c d | 4| E H M | 3| R x R R H R | 2| D C C D | 1| R R R R | +-----------------+ a b c d e d g h- The first line of the file indicates the turn number and which players turn it is to move.
- By default it is assumed that no steps have been taken and the player has 4 steps left. If any steps have already been taken to reach the position shown they are listed on the first line of the file using the notation for recording Arimaa games described earlier.
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