Coordinates

1A Shared Language

A coordinate system allows us to share and record games. It’s a way of saying where pieces are on the board and where they have moved. This coordinate system was first proposed by John Kaʻohelauliʻi.

Every square gets a short name made of a letter and a number. Once both players use the same names, a position can be described out loud, a move can be sent in a message, and a finished game can be written down for someone to study later.

2Showing the Coordinates

Your own boards can carry their labels or leave them off. The setting is under Preferences → Board coordinates: none, inside the board, or outside it in the margins.

On the papamu boards the letters and numbers sit on the wooden rail in both modes, which is where a carved papamu has always carried them.

3The Columns Are Letters

The columns — the ones running away from you — are the alphabet. Their letters are printed along the edge of the board nearest the player, one letter per column, starting from the left.

The ringed column here is c.

4The Rows Are Numbers

The rows — the ones running across in front of you — are numbers. They are printed down the side of the board, counting up from the near edge: row 1 is closest to White, and the numbers grow toward Black.

The ringed row here is 3.

5Naming a Square

A square is its column and its row, letter first: c3 is the ringed square here, three columns from the left and three rows up.

The order never changes. The letter always comes first and the number always follows it, so there is never any doubt about which of the two numbers in a game record is a row.

6a1 Is Always Black

The first square is a1, the near-left corner. It should always have a black piece. This is similar to chess, where a1 is a dark square.

Every other stone follows from that one, because the colours alternate: a square holds a black stone when its column and row numbers add up to an even number, and a white one when they add up to odd. On this 8×8 board that puts a white stone in the other near corner, h1.

7Boards Come in Many Sizes

Unlike in chess, however, kōnane boards come in many sizes. Likōnane plays anything from 4 to 20 squares on a side, and a board need not be square: 6×7, 8×9, 9×13 and 13×20 are all ordinary boards.

That means the right-most piece in the bottom row might be black or might be white. This board is 6 rows by 7 columns, so its bottom row ends at g1 — a black stone, where the 8×8 board above has a white one at h1. a1 is black on every board, whatever its size.

8The Board Turns, the Names Don’t

If you are playing Black, Likōnane shows you the board from your own side, and the flip control turns it either way at any time.

The names do not turn with it. This is the same 8×8 board seen from Black’s seat: a1 is still a1, it has just moved to the far corner. Coordinates belong to the board rather than to your chair, which is exactly what lets both players read the same move list.

9Writing the Opening Removals

The game opens with two removals: Black lifts a stone from a corner or the centre, then White lifts one of their own from a square next to the gap.

Nothing moves, so nothing needs an arrow. A removal is written as the square that was emptied and nothing else. Black has played d4 here.

10Writing a Jump

Every move after the openings is a capture. A jump is written as the square the stone started on, then an x, then the square it finished on — for example d4xd6.

The captured stone is not written down, because it can only be the one in between.

11A Multi-Jump Is Still One Move

A stone may keep jumping in the same direction, taking several stones in a single turn, and may stop after any of them. However many it takes, it is written the same way: where it started, an x, and where it came to rest.

The white stone below can take one stone with d1xd3 or both with d1xd5. The stones taken along the way are never listed — a jump runs in a straight line, so they can only be the ones on every other square in between.

12Bigger Boards, More Letters

The columns keep going through the alphabet as far as t, which is enough for the widest board Likōnane allows. This one is 14 rows by 17 columns, so its last column is q.

Rows simply count on past 9, as far as 20. A two-digit number is read as one number, so a12 is a single square in column a, not a1 followed by something else.

13The Pīʻāpā

The columns can be lettered in the pīʻāpā, the Hawaiian alphabet, instead of the Latin one. Choose it from the board menu in the top bar, under Coordinates.

The pīʻāpā is its own alphabet in its own order — the five vowels first, then the consonants — not the Latin letters rearranged. That is twelve letters, so past the twelfth the labels pair up: AE, AI, AO, AU and on, which is enough to carry a 20-column board.

This is spelling only. The square a move refers to never changes, so a game record passes between two players who have chosen differently and still means the same thing. The one thing that does follow your choice is typing a move: the keyboard entry expects the labels your own board is showing you.