Chess PGN Master manual

Release 1.0

Chess PGN Master

Sep 18, 2022

 CONTENTS

1 User Documentation 3
1.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Main menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Action menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.6 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.7 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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Chess PGN1 Master is a learning and study tool for chess amateurs and professionals alike. In order to improve in
chess, apart from playing lots of games, it is essential to
• study chess games from masters and to try to understand why the moves were played
• study endgame positions
• gain a basic knowledge of the openings you play
Chess PGN Master helps you with these tasks by making it easy to
• review chess games
• enter your own games and blunder check them
• analyze games with a strong chess engine
• play positions against a chess engine
and it can do a lot more!

1 PGN = portable game notation, a standard for saving and exchanging chess games

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2 CONTENTS
 CHAPTER

ONE

USER DOCUMENTATION

1.1 Installation

This manual assumes that you have the PRO key and the trial version of Chess PGN Master installed:
1. Install Chess PGN Master Pro Key from: Chess PGN Master Pro Key (Google Play)
2. Install Chess PGN Master from: Chess PGN Master (Google Play)
Start Chess PGN Master, load a PGN file, change the mode to Edit mode (see Changing the mode) and select the “Save
game” menu item in the left menu. This should open the Save game dialog.

1.2 Overview

This is an overview of the main display showing some features of Chess PGN Master on a tablet.

Fig. 1: Overview of Chess PGN Master

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1.2.1 The title bar

Fig. 2: Title bar with action buttons

The title bar contains:

• menu (also available if you swipe from the left of the device)
• title with game information (result, White, Black), file name and game number within the file
• Action menu with action buttons and the overflow button (the overflow button is invisible on devices which have
a hardware menu button)

1.2.2 Game list

In order to show or hide the game list tap the Game list button.

Search bar

On the top of the game list is a search bar. When you enter a word into the search bar the game list is filtered by this
word. Only enter one word and no spaces.

List of games

The list of games displays each game with the following information:
• White player
• Black player
• Result
• Event
• Site
• Game number

1.2.3 Board actions (buttons)

Fig. 3: Default board buttons

The buttons from left to right:

• Left Go one move back.
• Right Go one move forward.

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• Start autoplay Start the automatic playback.

• Previous game Go to the previous game.
• Next game Go to the next game.
The board action bar changes depending on the state the app is currently in. If, for example, analysis is enabled the
button bar shows the following buttons:

Fig. 4: Board buttons when analysing the game

The buttons from left to right:

• Left Go one move back.
• Right Go one move forward.
• Pause analysis Pauses the analysis (maintains connection to engine)
• Threat analysis on/off Turns Threat analysis on or off
• Add engine analysis to the game Add one or more lines of the current engine analysis to the game

1.3 Features

This is a list of the features of Chess PGN Master.

1.3.1 Easy navigation

Fig. 5: Navigation using the board.

• Tap on the left side of the board to go back one move. Tap on the right side of the board to go one move forward.
• Long tap on the left side of the board to move before the first move of the current variation. Long tap on the
right side to go to the last move of the current variation.
• Swipe left or right to navigate to the previous or next game.

Note: You can change the gestures in the settings. See the Gestures preferences.

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1.3.2 Autoplay

Autoplay lets you watch games without the need for you to move through the games yourself. The app automatically
moves the pieces for you. You can set the time span between moves in the preferences. See Autoplay preferences.
You can always change the game position (e.g. by swiping to the right to move forward a couple of moves) during
autoplay in order to speed up going through the games or to review previous moves. It’s also possible to select a
variation during autoplay. In this case autoplay will stop at the end of the variation.

1.3.3 Chess engines support

More information can be found in the Working with chess engines page.

1.3.4 Material imbalance

See Material imbalance display for more details.

1.3.5 Opening explorer

The Opening explorer page explains the opening explorer in depth.

1.3.6 Coloring buttons

See Coloring buttons for more details.

1.3.7 Sharing chess games with other apps

Sharing a game or position from Chess PGN Master

In order to share a game from Chess PGN Master select one of the options from the Share menu:
• Share game Share the game with another chess app which supports direct sharing.
• Send game Send a game with an app that supports the send sharing mechanism e.g. the Email app.
• Share current position Share the current position with another chess app which supports direct sharing.
• Share position as image Share the current position as an image.
• Copy game to clipboard Copy the current game to the clipboard.
• Copy position to clipboard Copy the current position to the clipboard.

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Sharing a game or position from another app to Chess PGN Master

Some chess programs allow the copying of a game or position to the clipboard. Chess PGN Master can import this
data from the clipboard. Follow these steps:
• copy the game or position to the clipboard with the other app
• open Chess PGN Master and select Paste from clipboard
There are several chess apps which allow direct sharing of a chess game. When you select Chess PGN Master as a
share target it opens with the shared game automatically.

1.3.8 Watching live games

You can watch games live as they occur. Do these steps to watch current live games:
• Open http://www.theweekinchess.com/live in your web browser on your device
• Select one of the PGN links from the PGN column.
• Choose to open the link with Chess PGN Master in the following dialog.

1.3.9 Support for other file formats

If Scid on the go is installed on your device Chess PGN Master is able to directly open databases in Scid format (ending
with .si4). These databases are opened read-only, i.e. it’s not possible to change and save games in this format.
CBH to PGN is able to convert most databases in ChessBase format (.cbh, no .cbv support) to PGN. When this app
is installed Chess PGN Master can directly open .cbh files: internally it calls CBH to PGN to convert the database to
PGN format, saves the PGN file in the pgn directory and then opens the converted PGN file.

1.4 Main menu

Open the main menu by tapping on the menu button or by swiping from the left side of your device to the middle of
the screen. The other menu items depend on the selected mode:

1.4.1 Changing the mode

There are three modes of Chess PGN Master which can be selected by tapping on the current mode, e.g. View mode
in the left menu.
When the mode is changed the menu and action bar also change to only show the menu items and action bar buttons
which are relevant for the selected mode.

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View mode

In view mode no changes to the current game are possible with these exceptions:
• through the opening explorer moves can be added
• engine analysis can be added to the game
• pasting from the clipboard is possible
• marking squares and drawing colored arrows using the coloring buttons

Edit mode

In edit mode new moves can be added by tapping on a piece (of the player to move) and tapping again on the target
square. The Add game to file is availabe and also a context menu is added to the move list (long tap on a move in the
move list to open the context menu with some menu items also available in the Add game to file).
In edit mode you need to tap on empty squares if you want to move forward or backward in the game by tapping on
the left or right side of the board.

Guess the move

Selecting guess the move mode hides the move list and you can try to guess the next move by tapping on a piece (of
the player to move) and tapping again on the target square. If the move was correct the move is made and the app
makes the next move of the game (of the other player) automatically. Then you can guess the next move.
Using the buttons of the button bar it’s possible to move through the game with the left and right button. So even if
you cannot guess the move right you can still move on, go to another position and try again.
Guess the move mode is also perfect for solving chess puzzles.

1.4.2 File menu

The file menu lets you open a PGN file containing chess games. After selecting one of the menu items the list of
games changes and the last viewed game gets selected.

Create Example PGN (Chess Fundamentals)

Selecting this menu item creates an example file you can use to try out features of PGN Master. Select a location for
the PGN file in the file saving dialog. This menu item is only visible as long as you have not created the example PGN
file.

Open file

Open a file from the device memory using the system file chooser. Be sure to only select files containing games in
portable game notation with the ending “pgn”. When you have Google Drive installed you can directly open PGN
files from your Google Drive file storage and have them synchronized automatically in the background.

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Open Dropbox file

If you have a Dropbox account you can open PGN files directly from your account. Selected files are downloaded to
place where you put it in the file dialog and then opened. They are not synced automatically with Dropbox. Which
means that if you make changes locally on your device you need to update the changed files to Dropbox yourself if
you want the changes also in your Dropbox account.

Open URL

Open a PGN file if you know a web URL (link). You need to enter the exact location of a PGN file on the web.

Note: It is much easier to just open the web browser on your device, tap on the PGN link in your browser and then
choose to open the file with Chess PGN Master. See also Watching live games

Favorites

Opens your favorites. It contains the games added with the menu item Add game to Favorites.

Search master games

This feature requires a separate app Master Games to be installed. It adds the option to search for master games by
specifying game data or by searching the current position:

Fig. 6: Search master games dialog

• Search game data: searches the master games database for the entered search criteria
• Search position: searches the master games database for games containing the displayed position (within the
main line)
If more than 1000 results are found then only the first 1000 results are displayed in the game list.

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New file

Creates a new empty file with the chosen file name at the selected directory. Be sure to add the pgn file extension to
the file name. E.g. “myFile.pgn”

1.4.3 Game menu

The game menu consists of game related menu items:

Information

Shows various data about the game. To add information to games see the Save game dialog.

Fig. 7: Game information dialog

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Add game to Favorites

Adds the current game to the favorites.

New game

Creates a new game at the end of the game list. An empty game is added automatically to the currently loaded file.

Paste from clipboard

Pastes game data (a whole game or just a position) from the clipboard. See also Sharing chess games with other apps.

Strip comments/variations

Strip all comments and annotations and/or all variations from a game.

Save game

Opens the save game dialog:

Fig. 8: Save game dialog

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Note: Make sure you have a backup of your important PGN files. Saving games should be safe but the author does
not guarantee that saving games will always work and that there will be no data loss.

The following fields (the PGN format also calles them “tags”) are always visible and cannot be deleted: Event, Site,
Date, Round, White, White ELO, Black, Black ELO, Result and Annotator
You can add more fields by selecting “ADD FIELD”. New fields are added at the bottom of the list. To delete a user
added field just delete its content. Empty fields will be removed after saving the game.

Save as new game

This is the same as Save game except that it saves the game as a new game at the end of the currently opened PGN file.

Delete game

Deletes the currently selected game from the curent PGN file.

Note: Always check twice if the game selected is the one you want to delete! Make sure you have a backup of your
important PGN files before you choose to delete a game.

Add game to file

Adds the current game at the end of another PGN file.

Add game to new file

Creates a new PGN file containing the current game only.

1.4.4 Position menu

Position related menu items are available in edit mode:

Annotation editor

Opens the annotation editor either in a separate window (on a phone or in portrait mode on a tablet) or instead of the
game list (tablet in landscape mode):
You can change the annotation before the move, after the move and add a move symbol and a position evaluation
symbol.

Note: After you save a game with annoations and reload the game the annotation after a move can be changed to an
annotation before the move of the next move. The reason for this behavior is the way PGN files are loaded in Chess
PGN Master. Nevertheless the move text will always stay the same.

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Fig. 9: Annotation editor

Symbols explained
! Good move
? Mistake
!! Brilliant move
?? Blunder
!? Interesting move
?! Questionable move
= Equal position
∞ Dubious move
+= Slight advantage for White
=+ Slight advantage for Black
+- Decisive advantage for White
-+ Decisive advantage for Black

Edit start position

This menu item starts the position editor to edit the start position of the game. This is useful if you want to enter e.g.
a chess puzzle which does not start at the usual chess start position.

Note: When you change the start position all moves of the current game will be deleted.

When the position editor starts no piece from the piece list is selected. When no piece is selected the delete mode is
active: Tapping on a piece removes the piece from the board.
If you want to add a piece select the piece to add from the piece list and tap on the position on the board where you
want to place the piece. You can tap again on another position to add the same piece again. If you want to add a piece
with a different color select the white/black button to change the color of the pieces in the piece list.

Note: If the position is invalid (e.g. no Kings on the board, too many Kings, etc.) then the OK button is disabled and
the position cannot be set.

To clear the board or set the initial position tap on the clear board/initial position button.
Select the Position settings from the action overflow menu to change the following settings:

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Fig. 10: Edit start position

• allowed castle moves for White and Black

• White or Black to move
• move number
• En passant square if the last move in the position was a pawn move and the next move could be an en passant
move
If you want to enter a Chess960 position check Chess960 and enter a position number. If you manually add a Chess960
start position the position number will reflect the entered start position.

Scan position with ChessOcr

This menu item is only available if the app ChessOcr is installed on your device. It calls the app to scan a position e.g.
from a book and to retrieve the scanned position into Chess PGN Master.

Insert Null move

Inserts a null move into the current position. You can also add a null move by selecting your King and then the King
of the opponent.

Promote variation

Promoting a variation moves a variation one level up. I.e. when the current variation is direct a sub-variation of the
main line and you promote this variation then the promoted variation becomes the main line.

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Delete current variation

Removes the current variation. Only works on variations and not the main line.

Delete current move

Deletes the current move and all remaining moves in the current variation.

Add position to file

Adds the current position to another file.

1.4.5 Preferences

See Settings.

1.5 Action menu

Fig. 11: Action buttons on a tablet without overflow button

If the overflow button is not visible, as in the example above, press the hardware menu on your device to show all
available actions not shown in the action bar.

1.5.1 Game list button

Fig. 12: Game list button

The game list button is used to show and hide the game list. On a tablet in landscape mode you can gain more space
for the game notation if you hide the game list.

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1.5.2 Engine actions

Start analysis

Starts the engine analysis. See Analysis for a detailed explanation.

Play against engine

Play the current position against the chess engine.

Blunder check

See Blunder checking games for a detailed description.

1.5.3 Stop engine

Stop any engine activity.

1.5.4 Pause/Continue engine

Pauses or continues the analysis while maintaining the connection to the engine. In order to save battery you can pause
the engine when you are moving through a game and only continue with analysis when you need it. The advantage
here is that the chess engine keeps being initialized and is faster to analyze new positions.

1.5.5 Threat

Turns Threat analysis on or off.

1.5.6 Flip board

Flips the board to show Black on the bottom and White on the top or vice versa.

1.5.7 Stop live games update

Stops the update of live games in the background. Only available if the PGN file was downloaded from the internet.

1.5.8 Save game

This action item is the same as the menu item Save game.

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1.5.9 Display

Opens a sub menu with the following entries:

Show moves

Shows or hides the moves text.

Show annotations

Shows or hides the game annotations if they are displayed separately from the moves. This menu item is only available
if Show annotations in-line is disabled.

Show buttons

Shows or hides the Board actions (buttons).

Show material imbalance

Shows or hides the Material imbalance display.

Show opening explorer

Shows or hides the Opening explorer.

Show engine output

Shows or hides the Engine output.

Show coloring buttons

Shows or hides the Coloring buttons.

1.5.10 Share

Opens a sub menu with options to share the game or position with other apps. See Sharing chess games with other
apps for more information.

1.5.11 Next Game

Opens the next game from the game list. Only available if the Board actions (buttons) are not shown.

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1.5.12 Previous Game

Opens the previous game from the game list. Only available if the Board actions (buttons) are not shown.

1.5.13 Autoplay start/stop

Starts or stops the Autoplay. Only available if the Board actions (buttons) are not shown.

1.6 Settings

Choose Preferences from the main menu to change the looks and behavior of Chess PGN Master.

1.6.1 Language

Choose between the System default language or one from the list. If your preferred language is not in this list and you
would like to volunteer to translate Chess PGN Master to your language then please contact the author via the Google
Play e-mail link.

1.6.2 Autoplay

Autoplay time-delay

This is the time delay in seconds between the moves in autoplay mode.

Include variations

Check this option if you want to visit variations during autoplay mode.

Continue with next game in autoplay mode

If this option is selected then the autoplay will continue with the next game after the current game has finished.

1.6.3 Orientation

Initial orientation

The initial board orientation when loading a game can be influenced by choosing one of the following settings:
• Current user setting Use the current orientation the user has set.
• Winner’s perspective Orient the board so that the winner is shown at the bottom. I.e. if the winner is Black
then the board will have the black pieces on the bottom of the board.
• Perspective of player to move This is useful for chess puzzles: this setting will always put the color to move
on the bottom of the board. I.e. if a chess puzzle starts with Black to move then black will be shown on
the bottom of the board. In order to see which color is on the bottom enable showing of the coordinates
and the side to move indicator.

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My player names

This setting allows Chess PGN Master to flip the board to show the game from the players perspective.
Enter one player name per line. If the entered name matches part of one of the players of the current game then the
board is flipped accordingly. This setting overrides the Initial orientation setting.

1.6.4 Gestures

Long press on buttons

Check this option if you want to be able to long press the previous/next buttons to move to the begin or the end of the
current variation.

Gestures and actions

Select one of the volume buttons or a gesture and choose an action to execute when you do the gesture on the board:
• No action
• Next move
• Previous move
• Next game
• Previous game
• Go to the move before the current variation
• End of the current variation
• Flip board
• 5 half-moves forward
• 5 half-moves back

1.6.5 Show list of variations

In order to simplify the selection of variations enable this setting to show a list of variations instead of the move list if
the next move has more than one variation. You can choose the main line automatically by simply going to the next
move (by tapping on the right side of the board or using the right arrow).

1.6.6 Guess the move: include variations

Check this if you want to accept moves from variations and choose random variations in Guess the move mode.

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1.6.7 Sound effects

Play a sound when a move is made.

1.6.8 E-Board

Select e-Board

If you have an electronic chessboard supported by PGN Master, you can select it from the drop-down list. For some
e-boards there is more than one choice depending on the protocol to be used. See Electronic chess boards for more
information regarding e-boards.
Note that Bluetooth connections require you to grant access to location information. This is a requirement for Android
to allow scanning for Bluetooth devices.

Move delay (milliseconds)

Setting a delay improves move recognition if you slide pieces on the board but it delays move detection for some
moves. Currently this setting is only recommended for the Chessnut Air e-Boards, where a move delay between
250ms and 400ms is suggested, depending how fast you normally slide pieces.

1.6.9 UCI engine

Set the chess engine used for Analysis, Playing against the engine and Blunder checking games. A detailed description
of how to add and use a third party engine can be found at Using 3rd party engines.

1.6.10 Number of lines to analyze (MultiPV)

Set the number of evaluations the engine calculates. The separate lines are shown in the engine output and you can
add each of them to the game. If you choose to evaluate more than one line keep in mind that the engine needs to
calculate more and will have less power for calculation of the best line. This setting directly sets the multipv option of
the current chess engine in use. It is not supported by every engine.

1.6.11 Engine options

Depending on the currently selected E-Board all the available engine options (except MultiPV) can be changed in this
page. For a detailed description of some common engine options see Common chess engine options.

1.6.12 Time per move

Set the time per move when playing against the engine in seconds. You can probably keep a low setting here because
all current engines are very strong and play at Grandmaster level even at low settings.

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1.6.13 Theme

Select a light or dark theme, follow the system settings (Android 10 and above) or let the system automatically select
the theme according to the current time (Android Pie and below).

1.6.14 Display options

In this page several display options are responsible for changing the display setup of the app.

Keep screen on

Disables the screen timout of your device as long as you are working with Chess PGN Master.

Hide notification bar

Hides the Android system notification area from the main window. It turns on immersive mode for devices running
Android KitKat or later.

Arrows for variations

Display arrows if there is more than one move in the position. You can change the arrow colors in the Custom colors
preferences.

Show coordinates

Show the coordinates on the board (a-h and 1-8). There are three options:
• No board coordinates Do not show any coordinates.
• Show board coordinates Show the coordinates on the board.
• Show board coordinates (save space) Show the coordinates but save space by truncating the border on the top
and right side of the board.

Highlight last move

The following options are available:

• Display arrow as move indicator
• Outline as move indicator
• Colored background
• No move indicator

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Side to move indicator

The side to move indicator is a little white or black dot on the border of the board to indicate Whites or Blacks move.
Show coordinates must be shown in order to display this move indicator.

Board size in landscape mode

The board size can be made smaller in landscape mode by changing the slider.

Board size in portrait mode

Also in portrait mode the board size can be adjusted using the slider.

Board on right side in landscape mode

Moves the board to the right side in landscape mode.

Show engine output

Shows or hides the Engine output. Also available in the Display.

Display arrows

If enabled arrows will be shown for engine results. If you select more than one line to analyze then up to four arrows
will be displayed to show the different evaluated lines.

Show graphical engine evaluation display

Shows or hides the Graphical evaluation display.

Show annotations in-line

When this option is disabled the annotations (game comments) are shown in a separate area. This can be useful if you
want to follow the game but hide the annotations.

Figurine Algebraic Notation

Option to use Figurine Algebraic Notation (icons for pieces) instead of K Q R B and N in the move list.

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Show moves

Also available from the Display: shows or hides the moves text.

Show buttons

The same as in the Display.

Show material imbalance

Shows or hides the Material imbalance display. Can be shown or hidden in the Display, too.

Show opening explorer

Shows or hides the Opening explorer. Also available in the Display.

1.6.15 Set encoding (language)

Some PGN files (e.g. some Russian PGN files available on the Internet) are saved with a special encoding. In order
to display annoatations of these files correctly you can set the character encoding of the current file (e.g. to Cyrillic).
This setting will be used for every file you open if the encoding cannot be detected automatically.

1.6.16 Identify opening

Automatically identify the opening of the current game. The name of the opening is shown in front of the move list.

1.6.17 Font size

Changes the font size of the move list and annotations.

1.6.18 Pieces

Choose a piece set for the board display.

1.6.19 Color scheme

Choose a color scheme for the main display.

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1.6.20 Custom colors

Here you can specify the

• Dark square color of the board
• Light square color of the board
• Color of the last move indication
• Arrow color of the main move (see also Arrows for variations)
• Arrow color of variations (see also Arrows for variations)

1.6.21 Live games

Jump to current position

When enabled the current position jumps to the last move played when a live game is refreshed (i.e. the PGN file is
re-downloaded from the Internet).

Live games refresh rate

The refresh rate in seconds a live URL is re-downloaded from the Internet.

1.7 Features

1.7.1 Working with chess engines

Analysis

Chess PGN Master lets you use UCI compatible chess engines to analyse chess positions. Blue arrows show the
moves on the board the engine would play in the analyzed position. Detailed engine analysis is displayed in the
analysis output display.

Engine output

There are two numbers in the engine output. The numbers in the example above have the following meaning:
• +0.0 is the numerical evaluation. It’s measurement is down to a 1/100th of a pawn. The value zero means that
the position is equal. A value of +1.0 would mean that White is better by the equivalent of one pawn. A negative
number would mean an advantage for Black.
• d20 is the depth in number of half-moves the engine was calculating. In this case 20 half-moves or 10 moves
deep.
Two lines were analyzed in the example analysis:
1. . . . Ne4 as the best move and
2. . . . a6 as the second best move

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Fig. 13: Example analysis

Fig. 14: Example analysis detail

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In this case the engine believes that the position would be equal after 31. . . Ne4. On the other hand after 31. . . a6 the
position would be the equivalent of 1.5 pawns in favor of White, also meaning a decent error from Blacks side if Black
would play it.
You can add the analysed lines to the game in order to see what the engine thinks what the continuation would be
assuming best play from both sides. Use the plus button from the Board buttons when analysing the game to add the
engine output.

Change number of lines to analyze

You can change the number of evaluations the engine calculates directly in the output: when you long press on the text
of the engine output two buttons appear to increase or decrease the number of evaluation lines.

Fig. 15: Change number of lines

Graphical evaluation display

The graphical evaluation display shows the evaluation on a bar. To the left of the bar the evaluation is -4.0, in the
middle (orange line) the evaluation is 0.0, to the right of the bar it’s +4.0.
The following example shows an evaluation of roughly +1.5:

Fig. 16: White is better

In this example the evaluation is around -3, and Black has a decisive advantage:

Fig. 17: Black has a decisive advantage.

As you can see from the examples the larger the bar of a color the better the evaluation is for this color.

Note: Pro tip: If you disable the engine output (Show engine output) and also disable the arrows for engine results
(Display arrows) you can go through a game using the engine of your choice and as a result you will only see the
graphical evaluation. When there are bigger jumps in the evaluation a mistake was made and you can try to find a
better move.

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Threat analysis

The threat analysis is answering the question: what move(s) would the engine choose if it were the other players turn?
It can be enabled using the Threat analysis button (see Board buttons when analysing the game) or by selecting the
action item if the board buttons are not visible. To disable it just choose the same button/action again.
The colors of the analysis arrows change from blue to red to indicate the threats the engine is calculating. Also the
engine output is displayed in red.

Playing against the engine

Chess PGN Master lets you play against the engine in order to train positions. It is not meant as a chess playing app,
rather it lets you e.g.
• train theoretically won endgame positions
• try to finish a game where a master has resigned and you’d like to try to continue the game against the engine

Blunder checking games

You can blunder check a game (e.g. your own games from online play) with the currently selected chess engine in
order to quickly check for serious errors made during the game.
After selecting Blunder check from the action bar you are presented with the blunder checking options:

Fig. 18: Blunder checking options

The blunder check is done in two passes: the first pass (default setting: 1 second per move) is shorter and it goes
through every move in the game to find errors. During the second pass all moves found in the first pass are analyzed
again with a longer time control (default setting: 5 seconds) to check for errors represented by threshold 1 (default:
0.9 pawns) and blunders represented by threshold 2 (default: 2 pawns).
The engine then annotates errors with a ? and blunders with a ?? and adds the first few moves of the engine analysis
to the game.
In order to get more accurate results you can try to increase the time controls for the first and second pass. You can
also try to adjust the thresholds if you think you get too many or too few error and blunder annotations in the game.

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Using 3rd party engines

You can add and select 3rd party chess engines in the preferences. Chess engines using the open exchange format (e.g.
Komodo) are automatically added to the list once they are installed on your device. You can just select them from the
list to use them.
Due to security restrictions imposed by Google, starting with Android 10 it is no longer possible to add engine binaries
directly. For older versions of Android, you can still add engine binaries downloaded from the internet:
• Make sure the downloaded engine is compiled for Android and tested on your Android version.
• Put the engine in any directory on your device. Make sure the engine is not within a packed archive (e.g. zip
file). If it’s a file ending with .zip you need to unpack it first with a file manager.
• In Chess PGN Master select Add and select the engine in the file selection dialog.
• The engine should now be in the list of engines. Select the engine and select OK.

Common chess engine options

Chess engine options vary from engine to engine. Here is a list of some important settings:

Hash

The maximum amount of memory used for the transposition table The maximum amount of memory in MB used for
the hash during search. Set this to a considerably smaller number than the amount of physical memory of your device.

Threads

The number of cores used for calculation. For maximum performance set this to the number of real cores your device
uses.

Syzygy endgame tablebases

Note: Setting the endgame tablebases does not work for devices running Android 10 and later. A solution to this
problem is being worked on.

Available e.g. in Komodo which supports the Syzygy endgame tablebases. You need to download the endgame bases
separately and put it on your device. Then set the path to the bases in the UCI options in Chess PGN Master.
See Komodos README.txt for more information.

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1.7.2 Material imbalance display

In order to show the material imbalance display enable it in the settings (see Show material imbalance) or enable it in
the Display Action menu (see Show material imbalance). It will be shown below the board or on top of the move list
on phone displays in landscape mode.

Fig. 19: The material imbalance display.

The material imbalance display shows the imbalance in a position regarding material. Contrary to showing the captures
of a game it shows captures the other player did not make. This may be confusing at the beginning but the advantage
soon becomes obvious: you don’t need to count pieces in order to know at a glance on how the material is distributed.
Here’s an example:

Fig. 20: Example: the material imbalance display during a game.

In this example White is currently one knight and one pawn up and Black is one rook up. You don’t need to know e.g.
that white has captured 3 pawns and black has captured 2 pawns. What counts is that White is one pawn up.

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1.7.3 Opening explorer

The openening explorer shows statistics about chess openings played by Masters (players with ELO > 2400).
More than 500.000 games between masters were analyzed to be included in the opening explorer. An opening move
was only included if there were at least three games played.
• The numbers in the opening explorer represent the number of games the move was played.
• The colors represent the percentage of
– white wins (white)
– draws (grey)
– black wins (black)

Fig. 21: The opening explorer in the initial position (no move played).

Clicking on a move changes to this move if it was played in the game or it adds it to the game. That way you can enter
different variations by clicking on different moves and see what masters have played in this position.

1.7.4 Coloring buttons

Coloring buttons let you add colored arrows and squares to show an idea you have in a position. The drawings get
saved to the position as special annotations in a format compatible with Chessbase. Thus you need to save the game if
you want to keep the colored arrows and squares.

Fig. 22: Coloring buttons.

To draw a colored arrow:

• select a color by tapping once on a coloring button
• drag from the start square to the end square to draw an arrow with the selected color
• deselect the color by tapping again on the same coloring button
To delete a colored arrow draw the same arrow over the existing one:
• select the color of the arrow
• drag from the start of the arrow to the end

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To color a square:
• select a color by tapping once on a coloring button
• select each square you want to color
• deselect the color by tapping again on the same coloring button
To remove the color of a square draw the same color on the square:
• select the same color
• select the colored square
To remove all the colored arrows and squares of the currently selected color:
• tap the X (which should display the same color you want to remove)

Fig. 23: Colored arrows showing the solution of a problem.

1.7.5 Electronic chess boards

If you have an electronic chessboard (E-Board), chances are you can connect it to PGN Master
The following e-boards are currently supported:
• Certabo (Bluetooth and USB)
• Chessnut Air
• DGT Classic Bluetooth
• DGT Pegasus
• Millennium Chesslink (Millennium eOne, Exclusive, Performance)
• Square Off Pro

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Special features

With an e-board, you can simply move the pieces on the board to input moves. Make sure you start with a synced
state, i.e. the board and the app are in sync. Go backwards in the current variation by simply undoing the moves you
played in reverse order on the board.

Autoplay

If you are using autoplay and the e-board has LED indicators, the app will show on the board which pieces need to be
moved. See this video for an example.

Position setup

If the e-board has piece recognition, you can simply place the pieces on the board and the position in the app will
reflect the position on the e-board. See this example video.
If the e-board does not support piece recognition, you need to set up the position as usual and place the pieces on the
e-board accordingly.

Guess the move

If you make a wrong move on the E-board in guess the move mode, a tone will sound to alert you that the move was
wrong and the LED indicators will indicate that you need to undo the wrong move.

Connection

To connect an e-board select the e-board in the preferences (see Select e-Board) and select the bluetooth or USB
symbol from the action menu.

Note: If you’re connecting via Bluetooth, turn off any Bluetooth devices you’re not using for the best experience.
Also make sure you have granted location permissions and location services are enabled.

E-board dialog

After connection, the E-board dialog is accessible in the action menu. The icon is either displayed

• as a pawn with a tick: The e-board and the app are in sync

• as a yellow pawn with a dot: The e-board and the app are not in sync
When the e-board is out of sync, you usually have to make the move that is shown on the display or on the e-board.
The options and buttons in the e-board dialog vary depending on the connected e-board type:

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Fig. 24: E-Board connection.

Disconnect symbol

Selecting the disconnect symbol disconnects the currently connected e-board immediately.

Cogwheel

Further settings specific to the e-board type.

CALIBRATE

Available for Certabo e-boards. The calibration needs to be done once to tell the app which piece is which. Place all
pieces in the starting position. Put extra queens on D3 and D6. A new calibration removes all older calibration results.

SYNC

Available for e-boards that don’t have piece recognition. If you cannot sync the e-board with the app by placing the
pieces on the same fields then use the sync button to sync the e-board with the app.

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Fig. 25: E-Board dialog.

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OTB

Only available for Chessnut e-boards. Use this button to transfer OTB games stored on the device. The games are
removed from the e-board after the transfer is complete.

Note: Make sure you don’t make illegal moves in OTB games. If you make an illegal move, all moves made after
that move are discarded.

See this example video.

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