Talk:Chess annotation symbols

Position evaluation symbols
I'm (as a chess-notation-illiterate reader) confused by the various symbols for advantages. If "+/− (−/+): Advantage" is normally written ± and "the other similar symbols are written in that style too"... what do the other symbols (particularly "+- (-+)") "actually" look like? And why the parenthesized alternate forms? Conkle (talk) 00:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Answered on user's talk page. Bubba73 (talk), 02:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your response. (Incidentally, after reading WP:TP I realized I improperly top-posted... I apologize!)  I should have been more straightforward: I meant only to point out that the section in question is ambiguous and confusing to a non-expert suddenly confronted with a list of very similar symbols.  I asked a few of the questions that arose in my mind (and presumably in others' as well) as a example, not as a personal request for information.  I apologize for adding my own ambiguity to the world!  Conkle (talk) 03:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, "±" seems to be the only one of those that is fairly commonly available in a character set. But you can see how "+/-" translates to that, and imagine the others.  Bubba73 (talk), 03:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, the text as it stood seemed unclear; I've clarified that ± means White advantage and ∓ Black. 91.105.42.143 (talk) 17:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Are there similar characters for +/= and =/+? Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 06:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are, and they belong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.147.9 (talk) 19:45, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * RE: Character sets- can you perhaps provide images for symbols shown as ∓? Not sure what symbols are missing since I can't see them. Several within 'Other Symbols' appear as such (at least in my browser). Interestinly, the 'Contents' table does not show one of the symbols of arrows that is displayed in the text.56.0.143.24 (talk) 04:21, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is one, plus the similar with the + on top. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Reordering
I reordered the symbols into symbols of increasing effectiveness of a move to make more sense. --70.111.224.85 13:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Symbols
Some of the symbols can be a single character, for example ‼. ςפקι Д Иτς ☺ ☻ 15:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

All double punctuation mark SHOULD be single character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.23.31 (talk) 10:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

!! Brilliant move
This has been added to "!! Brilliant move" or the start of a forced checkmate. I'm not familiar with this. Can a reference be provided? If not, I think it should be removed (unless the consensus is to keep it). Bubba73 (talk), 21:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I've decided to remove that, for now at least. In 39 years of reading chess books, I've never seen "!!" used that way.  If there is a citation for that, it should go back in.  Bubba73 (talk), 00:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. In a position like in the diagram, I would not give a "!!" for Rd8+, nor do I think any annotator would. (I would probably give a "??" for any other move, and perhaps some more question marks for Rc1.) Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly. I don't think that any move that leads to checkmate should get a !!, only a brilliant one.  Bubba73 (talk), 15:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

? - poor move, mistake, bad move ..
A discussion came up recently about the use of a single question mark and what that signifies in English. There seems to be a lot of ambiguity about this.


 * Oxford Companion to chess - weak move
 * Nunn's Chess Openings - bad move
 * Batsford Modern Chess Openings - bad or speculative move
 * Scid database software (last official release, version 3.6.1) - poor move
 * Play winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan - poor move
 * Logical Chess: Move by Move, Irving Chernev - a mistake.
 * The Mammoth Book of Chess by Graham Burgess - bad move

Perhaps the main article should mention the various wordings that are attached to '?'. Drkirkby 04:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure those different definitions for "?" are really in disagreement. To me "bad move", "weak move", and "mistake" are all pretty synonymous terms. Compare that to "!?" where the definitions "interesting move", "risky move", and "enterprising move" have different meanings. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Too much editorializing
I think there's far too much editorializing in the Punctuation (chess) section (the section is poorly named, as well). It should be much punchier and to the point. I suspect that most of the opinions in that section would be hard to source. Compare the description in The Oxford Companion to Chess: under the entry "conventional symbols", for ! the Oxford Companion simply says "good move". What we have is in my opinion not entirely an improvement. I hate to remove people's hard work, but I think this section should be cut down to what we can source. A (brief) general discussion of how the annotations are typically used could be put in a separate section if well-sourced. Quale 04:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I tend to agree. I made this article back in March 2005 (i.e. infancy) before I came to appreciate the value of sourcing and having references. I think Soltis had an article about "?" and "!" in the March 1997 (I'll need to search) Chess Life. Although written with a somewhat humorous tone, the history and chess stuff in his column is reliable enough. The one thing I remember from that article was that "!" was originally used to denote bad moves. Sjakkalle (Check!)  14:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Question marks and exclamation marks in parentheses
I'm not sure if this notation is very common, but there are certainly books that employ symbols within parentheses, such as:

17. Nxf7 (?)

The meaning seems to vary, sometimes I feel that '(!)' and '(?)' are essentially the same as '!?' or '?!', respectively. Other times, it seems to mean something like 'a psychologically good/bad move' (i.e. a move that leads to a position that the opponent probably dislikes) or a move that offers many/few practical chances, e.g. in a lost position, or an unnecessary detour in a won position, etc. I also seem to remember that the (?) notation might also denote an opening move that is indeed weak but was considered good at the time the game was played. Of course, all this is currently original research, so can anyone confirm this and has a reliable source at hand? 84.46.0.165 (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Kasparov uses (?) to mean roughly the first option - eg he annotates his move 20 of game 4 of the 1985 World Champs as "20 ... Rdc8(?) Strictly speaking, this move does not deserve a question mark... But from the practical viewpoint (it) deserves to be seriously criticized" Fletch79 (talk) 00:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It meaning with the brackers is as none chess usage. The '(?)' mark means unknown - or I don't know. So it's not chess annotates as such. SunCreator (talk) 00:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Other actions?
What about a little section on annotating actions other than moves with question / exclamation marks? For example, resigning a won position would normally receive at least two question marks (see Levente Lengyel for a real-life case). Fletch79 (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thats non-standard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.147.9 (talk) 19:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

two "other symbols" sections
1.7 and 4 have more or less same content. I wont fix it.

Addon: also it would be interesting to have the unicode code points (thats why i came here) and images for +-- (black should resign), +-, +/-, +=, =+, -/+, -+, --+ (white should resign), (white has compensation), (black has compensation), (counterplay), (unclear), etc etc here. And i mean the true symbols (eg. ∓ instead of -/+) as sometimes those symbols are used together, separated by dash, eg "=/=+" to indicate a minimal advantage for black (or as kramnik would say: "black is slightly more even"). I wont/cant fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.147.9 (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

The Mednis quote
Was Mednis talking out of his rear end with the quote about Spassky's 14.Nb1 against Fischer? What does he recommend instead? No other writer that I know of has criticised this move, and it certainly is not a blunder or "??" move. For what it's worth it's the engine's first choice. Perhaps a better example of "annotation by result" can be found to illustrate the point? MaxBrowne (talk) 01:45, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Interrobang Link Unnecessary?
In the "see also" section of the article, there is a link to the page Interrobang. I imagine that this is due to all of the mentions of exclamation points and question marks, but the interrobang actually has no relevance to the chess annotation article. Guitarmankev1 (TALK) 13:53, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. ✅. See also WP:FIXIT. --IHTS (talk) 02:07, 19 January 2021 (UTC)