Annotate Game using Chess Engine

Annotate Game using Chess Engine
	Chapter 13. Engine Analysis

The annotate feature allows you to use your engine to automatically annotate all the moves in a game. For example after using the Explore button on the play versus computer page to examine the game in the database, you can use the annotate feature to ask for a full game analysis from the engine, with blunders and the improved lines inserted into the move list. You can also paste games you have played elsewhere into the game database move list using the 'paste' button beneath the board, and analyse those games inside the Chess Tempo web page.

Note

All evaluations inserted into the move list during engine annotations are from white's point of view, rather than the point of view of the player to move (so +1.00 would always indicate white is in front, even when attached to a black move).

To initiate game analysis click on the Annotate button which will launch a dialog that allows you to select game annotation settings. The following settings are available:

Max Time per move/Max Depth

Max Time per move and Max depth settings control how many resources are spent analysing each posiiton. The engine will stop analysing when it reaches either one of the settings. For example, if 15 seconds and depth 10 is selected, the engine will stop analysing and move on to the next position when either 15 seconds has been used, or depth 10 as been reached, whichever happens first.

Note

When a maximum time setting is used, some engines will not exit immediately upon reaching the maximum time, but may continue until all moves at the current depth have been examined.

Side to Analyse

Allows you to select only a particular side's moves for analysis, for example when analysing your own games, you may want to save time by requesting only moves from the side which you played.

Note

Selecting a particular side does not completely prevent analysis for that side's moves, as analysis from the opposite side may still be required to determine when sub-optimal moves have been played.

Insert Eval For Each Move

If selected, this option inserts an Engine evaluation for each move analysed, irrespective of whether the move was above the output threshold. All evalaution scores will be shown from white's point of view.

Show Depth With Eval Score

When selected, the current depth reached during the analysis is shown for any evaluations inserted into the move list.

Auto scroll move list

If this option is selected, the move list will be scrolled to show the currently analysed move.

Maximum Length of Inserted Lines

This setting controls how many moves are used when inserting lines into the move list. Moves at the end of lines start to become unreliable due to the horizon effect, so you may want to set this value to a smaller number to avoid outputting longer lines. You can also set this to 1 to avoid clutter and only output the best move instead of the full move list. This value is defined in ply rather than full moves, so 2 means one white move, and one black move.

Last Move

The move number of the last move to analyse, unlike the length setting, this number is defined in terms of full game moves. It is set by default to the last move in the game. The first position to analyse is chosen by selecting the start move before the Annotate button is clicked.

Output Threshold

The output threshold controls the evaluation gap required between the move played and the best engine move before an annotation line is inserted into the move list. The value is in terms of pawns, so 0.5 would indicate that the best engine move would need to be at least half a pawn better than the move that was played for an annotation to be created. If you want every move annotated you can set this value to zero.


Engine Lines Display		Potential Problems using Engine Analysis