fully developed form, before the now-obsolete descriptive chess notation evolved. The main difference between Stamma's system and the modern system is that Stamma used "p" for pawn moves and the original of the piece ("a" through "h") instead of the initial letter of the piece. In London in 1747, Philidor convincingly defeated Stamma in a match. Consequently, his writings (which were translated into English) became more influential than Stamma's in the English-speaking chess world; this may have led to the adoption of a descriptive system for writing chess moves, rather than Stamma's coordinate-based approach. However, algebraic notation became popular in Europe following its adoption by the highly influential Handbuch des Schachspiels, and became dominant in Europe during the 20th century. It did not become popular in the English-speaking countries, however, until the 1970s. See also Algebraic notation (chess) Chess opening theory table Chess symbols in Unicode References External links "Chess Notation" by Edward Winter Notation