Single Comment

Might I offer the possibly sacrilegious comment that it's time to update Betza notation? As excellent as it is, time has moved on, and new pieces cannot be easily described using the current notation. Several people, including myself, have done some extension of this notation to describe our own pieces, if nothing else. 

Once upon a time, I would have proposed a project here to update the notation, bring it into the 21st century. I probably know better now. So I'll just ask for everyone who has extended Betza notation to let us all know what you've done, with at least a brief but thorough description and a link to the complete work. 

I would suggest that Ralph's prohibition on symbols can be relaxed now, as it's unlikely that even minimally careful use of standard typewriter symbols will cause that many problems on today's webpages. 

Was going to end here [many might wish that I had], but decided I'd throw my hat into the ring with notation I developed for shortrange pieces of varying complexity. I use this notation and associated icons extensively in my designs, having found it a very useful shorthand for this sort of piece. So I'm hoping that all those game pages won't have to be changed at some time in the future. And while I'm not overly optimistic this will wind up next to Betza's work, I'll give it a serious try with the following condensed discussion of the warmachine and its various possible moves:

DW
0] Combine the dabbabah and wazir into the warmachine. The generic
piece can be identified as 'DW'. This identifies the components
without specifying any particular movement pattern.

D/W
1] OR. The warmachine may move as either one of its components, that is,
like a wazir or a dabbabah.

D+W
2] AND (linear). The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It may not change direction during this move.

D +/- W
3] AND (nonlinear). The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It *may* change direction during this move.

D/W + D/W
4] And-Or (two-step linear rider). Our basic DW piece may move as either
of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again.

D/W +/- D/W
5] AND-OR (two-step nonlinear rider). Our basic DW piece may move as
either of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again. It *may* change direction during this move.

[D+W]/[A+F]
6] [AND]-OR-[AND] (compound two-step linear rider)
The War Elephant. This piece may move as either the linear Hero, as seen above, or as its diagonal analog, the linear Shaman.

http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/joe-s-strange-notation is the wiki page with illustrations and a companion iconology for identifying how the pieces move.