OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

ANALYSIS PROGRAM

SCID
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QUICK GUIDE TO USING SCID

Scid is a chess database application; With it you can browse chess game databases, edit
games and search for games by various criteria.
Scid uses its own special three-file database format, which is very compact and fast, but
can convert to and from the standard PGN (Portable Gaming Notation) format. Scid's PGN
window displays the current game text in PGN format.
You can use Scid to add chess games to a database, using the keyboard or mouse to enter
moves. See the help page on entering chess moves for more details.
You can also use Scid as a PGN file browser, by pasting PGN text into Scid's Import window
or opening a PGN file in Scid. However, PGN files cannot be edited by Scid (it opens them
read-only) and they use more memory and are slower to load, so for large PGN files it is
recommended that you create a Scid database with the utility pgn Scid.
Windows can be used in docked mode or as stand-alone windows (see the flag in the
options menu). In docked mode, the most important windows are integrated into one of
the main ones. Windows can be reordered by right-clicking the tab (where the window
title is located) and dragging the tabs from one notebook to another. The menu for each
window that has one (marked with a triangle to the left of the tab) is opened by left-
clicking on the tab.
The main Scid window (with the graphical chessboard) shows the details of the active
game and the database. At any given time, you can have up to nine databases open (five
including the base clip), and each will have its own active game. (A game numbered 0
indicates a game from scratch that is not part of the actual database.) You can switch
between open databases with the File menu.
For more information, read the other help pages listed in the Help Index.
Please see the contact information page if you need to contact the Scid author.
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SCID TIPS
This page contains helpful tips in question and answer format to help you better use Scid.
If you are new to Scid, read the quick guide first. Most of the information on this page is
available in more detail on the other help pages listed in the index. If you think of a useful
suggestion to add to this page, please send it to the Scid author.
Can I get Scid to load a database when it starts?
Yes, you can add databases, PGN files or EPD files to the command line. For example:
scid mybase [Link]
will load the Scid mybase database and will also load the Gzipped PGN file [Link].
Is there an easier way to change the board size than using the options menu?
Yes, you can use the shortcut keys Control + Shift + Left Arrow and Control + Shift + Right
Arrow to decrease or increase the size of the board.
I'm training by playing through a game, so I don't want Scid to print the next move in the
game info area below the chessboard. Can I hide it?
You can hide the next move by pressing the right mouse button in the game information
area and selecting Hide Next Move from the menu that appears.
How can I see the ECO opening code for the current position?
The ECO code is displayed on the bottom line of the game information box, below the
chessboard in the main window, if you have the ECO classification file ([Link]) loaded.
The ECO codes help page explains how to load the ECO classification file and save options
so that it is loaded every time you start Scid.

I'm coming into a game, and I'm on move 30, but I just saw that move 10 was wrong. How
can I correct it and maintain all the movements afterwards?
You can use the Import window; See the entry moves help page for more information.
How do I copy games from one database to another?
Use the Database Switcher window: Drag from the source database to the destination
database to copy all games to the source database filter.
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Every time I enter a move where one already exists, I get the message "Replace move?"
dialog box. How do I avoid that?
Disable it with the Ask before replacing moves option in the [Options: Moves] menu. Or,
get into the habit of recovering moves with the right mouse button, which removes the
move from the game if you are on the last move in the game.
How do I change column widths in the game list window?
Click the left or right mouse button on each column title.
How can I use the tree window on a selection of games, not my entire database?
Use clipbase. Set your database filter to contain the games you want to use the tree on,
then copy them to the database using the database switch. Then simply open the tree
window in the clipbase.
Tree is slow for large databases. How do I speed it up?
Save the tree cache often, to save the results of the tree for future use. See the caching
section of the Tree help page for more information.
How can I edit the PGN representation of the game directly?
You cannot use the PGN window to edit the current game, but you can still edit its PGN
representation using the Import Game window. Just open it (shortcut key: Control + Shift
+ I) and then press the Paste Current Game button, then edit the game, then press Import.

My database has multiple spellings for some player names. How do I correct them all?
You can edit individual names or spell check all names in a database with the commands
in the [File: Maintenance] menu. See the maintenance page.
I have two databases open: one with my own games and a large database of grandmaster
games. How do I compare one of my games to those in the big database?
Simply open the tree window for the reference database and return to the game to
compare using the database switch. Alternatively, a database can be opened directly as a
tree via the File menu.

SCID MAIN WINDOW

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The main window in Scid shows the current board position of the active game and
information about the current game and the database. Separate help pages describe the
menus and ways to enter chess moves.

Game navigation buttons

The navigation buttons on the dashboard have the following meanings, from left to right:

Move to the start of the game. [Home]

Back up one movement. [Left]

Move forward one movement. [Right]

Move to the end of the game. [End]

Move in a variation. [v]

Exit the current variation. [z]

Add a new variation. [Ctrl-A]

It means that the current move has a textual commentary attached to it. This
comment is displayed in a tooltip when you hover over the button. Pressing the button
also opens the comment editor.

Start/stop autoplay mode (see below). [Ctrl-Z]

Start/stop test mode. [Ctrl-Space]

Rotate the board 180 degrees. [.]

Show/hide board coordinates. [0]

Keyboard shortcuts are given in square brackets.

Autoplay mode
In autoplay mode, Scid automatically plays the moves in the current game, advancing to
the end of the game. The time delay between moves can be set from the [Options: Moves]
menu, and is saved to your options file when you save options.
The Control + Z hotkey starts or stops autoplay mode, and you can also exit autoplay
mode by pressing the Escape key.
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If you start autoplay mode when the analysis window is open, the game is scored: the
score and analysis for each position is added to the game as a new variation just before
each move is made. See the analysis window help page for more details.

The game information area.

The area below the chess board that displays information about the game is called the
game information area. Its first three lines show information such as the players, their
country, the result, the date and the location. This information is obtained from the games
PGN header. To display country information, the WhiteCountry/BlackCountry fields must
be available. The fourth line indicates the current position in the game and what the next
move is.
Additionally, the flags set for a given game are displayed. Here, custom flags only appear
by their respective number, while standard flags also display their textual meaning.
Next to the flags, a link called Bib may appear in case the PGN header contains a
bibliographic link, ie. A link to chess literature. This link will be placed in a special header
field called Bib and will link the game to a BibTeX database containing the bibliographic
information. This binding is done using a nearly standard LaTeX structure, i.e. the Bib field
first contains the BibTeX key. Additional information (e.g. page, game number...) can be
added using addinfo. To give more than one bibliographic link, several of these entries can
be separated by; (i.e. space space semicolon). To resolve the bibliographic reference, Scid
first searches for a file. bib named as the database in the database directory. If it can't find
such a file, it falls back to ~/.scid/data/[Link].
The fifth line shows the ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) code for the current
position, if the position appears in the ECO file being used.
If Scid can find a suitable photo file (either in ~/.scid or in the Scid shared directory within
the photos folder) and photos exist for the players, these photos also appear in the
information area. (Suitable photo files can be downloaded from the Scid website;
documentation of their format is included within these files.) However, player photos tend
to hide text in the information area. Therefore, they can be temporarily minimized by
clicking on them.
The game information area has a right-click menu, with options to hide the next move
(useful if you're training with a game and want to guess every move) and to delete or
recall the current game. You can also activate this menu without using the mouse, by
pressing the function key [F9].
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On the right side of the board, the material balance can be shown with small piece
symbols. E.g. If white has captured a bishop, while black has captured a knight, a white
bishop and a black knight appear.
table bases
The game information area also displays table base results when the displayed position
reaches a material configuration found in a table base file. See the database help page for
more information.
The status bar
The status bar displays information about the current database. The first field indicates
the state of the game: XX means that it has been modified and not yet saved, while -
means that it has not changed, and %% indicates that the database is read-only (not
modifiable).
If you want a database to open read-only, simply set the permissions of your Scid files, or
at least your index file, for example: chmod aw myfile.si3 as a shell command, and it will
open read-only Scid.
The status bar also shows how many games are currently in the filter.
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SCID MENUS

Proceedings
[New]: Create a new empty Scid database.
[Open]: Open an existing Scid database.
[Close]: Close the current Scid database.
[Finder]: Open the file finder.
[Bookmarks]: Bookmarks and bookmark functions.
[Open Database as Tree] – Opens the tree window for a selected database
[Open Recent Base as Tree]: Provides a list of recently opened databases for their tree
window.
[Maintenance]: Database maintenance functions.
[Maintenance Window]: Open/close the database maintenance window.
[Delete twin games]: Find twin games in the database.
[ECO - Classify games]: Recompute the ECO code for all games in the database.
[Name Editor] - Replaces all occurrences of a player, event site, or round name.
[Read Only]: Makes the current database read-only.
[Switch to Database ]: These commands allow you to switch between the 8 available
database slots and the clipbase database.
1/2/3/4/5 / ... Provides a list of recently used databases for easy recovery.
[Exit]: Exits Scid.

Edit
[Add Variation]: Adds a new empty variation for the next move, or for the previous move
if there is no next move yet.
[Delete Variation]: Provides a submenu of variations for the current move, so one can be
deleted.
[Do First Variation]: Promotes a variation to be the first variation of the current
movement.
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[Promote Variation to Mainline]: Promote a variation to be the mainline, swapping it with
its parent.
[Test Variation]: Enter test mode to test a temporary variation without altering the
current game.
[Strip]: Removes all comments or variations from the current game.
[Undo]: Allows you to undo up to 10 recent changes.
[Empty Clipbase]: Empty the clipbase so that it does not contain games.
[Copy this game to clipbase]: Copy the current game to the clipbase database.
Additionally, the games' current PGN notation is added to the system clipboard.
[Paste last clipbase game]: Paste the active clipbase game to be the active game in the
current database.
[Set Home Table]: Set the starting position for the current game.
[Copy Position]: Copies the current position as FEN notation to the system clipboard.
[Paste Home Table]: Sets the home table of the current text selection (clipboard). This
selection must be a valid FEN notation.

Game
[New Game]: Resets the active game to an empty state, discarding any unsaved changes.
[Load first/previous/next/last game]: Load the first, previous, next or last game in the
filter.
[Reload this game]: Reloads the current game, discarding any changes made.
[Load Game Number]: Load the game given its game number in the current database.

[Save: Replace Game]: Saves the current game, replacing its original version in the
database.
[Save: Add New Game]: Saves the current game as a new game, adding it to the end of the
database.
[Identify Opening]: Find the deepest position in the current game found in the ECO file.
[Go to move number]: Go to the specified move number in the current game.
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[Find new]: Find the first move of the current game that has not been played before in the
current base.

Look for
[Reset Filter]: Reset the filter so that all games are included. This does not affect a filter
created by a eventually opened tree window.
[Deny Filter]: Reverses filter criteria that are not set by a tree window that is eventually
opened.
[Current Board]: Find the current position of the board.
[Header]: Search by header information, such as player names. This filter is cumulative to
a filter finally set by an open tree window.
[Material/Pattern]: Search by material or checkerboard patterns. This filter is cumulative
to a filter finally set by an open tree window.
[Using Search File]: Search using the settings of a search options file. This filter is
cumulative to a filter finally set by an open tree window.

Windows
[Comment Editor]: Open/close the comment editor window.
[Game List Window]: Open/close the Game List window.
[PGN Window]: Open/close the PGN window.
[Tournament Finder] – Opens/closes the Tournament Finder window.

[Database Switcher]: Opens/closes the Database Switcher window, allowing you to switch
to another database or copy games between databases easily.
[Maintenance Window]: Open/close the database maintenance window.
[ECO Browser]: Open/close the ECO Browser window.
[Statistics Window] - Opens/closes the filter's statistics window that provides a win/loss
summary of the games in the filter.
[Tree Window]: Open/close the tree window.
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[Endgame Database Window]: Opens/closes the window displaying database table
information.
[Correspondence Window]: Open/close the window to manage correspondence chess
games.

Play
[Serious Game]: Allows you to play an installed UCI chess engine in a serious game, i.e. in
tournament conditions.
[Tactical Game]: Allows you to play the Phalanx chess engine at an adjustable level.
[Play on FICS] - Provides access to the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) to play chess
games against human opponents or chess engines, observe games, or participate in
training sessions.
[Training]: Access various training modes available in Scid.
[Correspondence Chess]: Access the functions for configuring correspondence chess and
the game
[Configure]: Allows configuration of the correspondence chess subsystem.
[Watch Games]: Allows you to watch games by searching for them on a website.
[Open Database]: Open the default correspondence chess database (see settings)
[Recover Games]: Extract games from a server using the Xfcc protocol.
[Process Inbox]: Processes the correspondence chess inbox to work on new games and
moves to the current database.
[Send Motion]: Transmit a motion to a server using the Xfcc protocol.
[Resign]: Resign from the current game (requires Xfcc).
[Claim Draw]: Claim a draw in the current game (requires Xfcc.)
[Offer Giveaway]: Offer a giveaway in the current game (requires Xfcc).
[Accept Draw]: Accept the opponent's draw offer (requires Xfcc).
[Game Page]: Opens the web page associated with an Xfcc game.
[New Email Game]: Start a new email-based game.
[Move Mail]: Send the move to the opponent in an email-based game.
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Tools
[Analysis Engine]: Displays a list of all installed chess engines available for analysis to select
and start one of them as Analysis Engine 1.
[Analysis Engine No. [#2] – Displays a list of all installed chess engines available for analysis
to select and start one of them as analysis engine 2.
[Start Engine 1]: Start/stop the chess analysis engine, displaying the evaluation of the
current position in the analysis window.
[Start Engine 2]: Starts/stops a second scan engine.
[Crosstable]: Build a tournament crosstable for the current game.
[Email Manager]: Open/close the email manager window, to manage email
correspondence games.
[Rel. filter graph]: generates a relative filter graph, e.g. e.g. to investigate the popularity of
the current opening by comparing the current position with the entire database.
[ABS. filter graph]: Generate an absolute filter graph
[Opening Report]: Generate an opening report for the current position.
[Part Tracker]: Open the parts tracker window.
[Book Adjustment]: Allows you to adjust the probability values of a move played in a
selectable opening book).
[Connect Hardware]: Allows you to use external hardware to input moves. (For example,
DGT electronic chess board, Novag Citrine)
[Configure]: Allows you to set basic parameters for the use of external hardware
[Connect Entry Engine]: Connects to hardware that supplies a driver compatible with the
entry engine (for example, the dgtdrv website).
[Connect Novag Citrine]: Connects with a Novag Citrine board.
[Player Information]: Displays the player information of one of the two players in the
current game.
[White]: Use the white player from the current game.
[Black]: Use the black player of the current game.
[Player Report]: Generate a player report
[Rating Chart]: Display the ranking chart.
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[Score Graph]: Display the score graph.
[Export Current Game]: Save the current game to a text file in PGN, HTML or LaTeX
format. See the export help page.
[Export All Filter Games]: Save all games in the search filter to a text file in PGN, HTML or
LaTeX format. See the export help page.
[Import PGN Game]: Opens the Import window to input a game by typing or pasting its
text in PGN format.
[Import PGN Games File]: Imports a complete file containing games in PGN format to the
current database. Note that multiple PGN files can be selected in this dialog at once.

Options
This menu provides entries for configuring most of Scid's configurable options. The [Save
Options] entry saves the current options to the file "~/. scid /config/[Link]" (or
"[Link]" in the "config" subdirectory of Scid executables for Windows users); this file
is loaded every time you start Scid.
Aid
This menu contains help functions and access to the tip of the day window or the startup
window that provides information about the files that Scid loaded when it started.
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ENTER CHESS MOVES.
In Scid, you can enter game moves with the mouse or keyboard. Moving the mouse over a
square will cause it and another square to change color if there is legal movement to or
from that square. This is the suggested move. To do this move simply click the left mouse
button. You can turn off the motion suggestion using the Options menu if it bothers you.
To perform any move other than the suggested move, you can use the left mouse button:
simply press the button on one square and release it on the other square.
If you want to enter a variation without being prompted for confirmation, use the middle
mouse button to enter the move.
Depending on [Options / Moves / Highlight last moves] and the settings made there, Scid
will mark the last move with a colored frame around the fields involved.

Retracting a movement
To go back a move, press the right mouse button, Control + Delete, or Control +
Backspace. This goes back one move, and eliminates the move if it is the last one in the
game or variation.

Replacing old movements

When you enter a move at a point in the game where a move already exists, Scid will
present a dialog box asking if you really want to replace the previous move (the previous
move and all moves after the loss) or if you want to add the new one. movement as a
variation instead. Some people may find this dialog annoying and always want to replace
old moves, so it can be disabled with the [Options: Moves] "Ask before replacing moves"
menu option.

Marking fields and addresses

Colored squares and arrows can be entered directly on the board without using the
comment editor using the mouse buttons. For colored squares you can click with the Shift
key pressed on the square in question. The Shift-Left button marks the square in green,
the middle button in yellow and the right button in red. To draw arrows you can press Ctrl
and click in the source and destination boxes. The left mouse button once again appears
green, the center button appears yellow, and the right mouse button appears as a red
arrow.
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Trial mode
If you are studying a game and come to a position where you want to try an alternative
variation on the board without altering the game, select Try Variation from the [Edit]
menu to enter test mode. In this mode, you can make temporary moves and changes in
the game, and then return to the original position when you exit test mode.

Correcting errors
If you're entering a game and suddenly see a wrong move several moves earlier, it's
possible to correct it without losing the extra moves you've added. The only way is to edit
the PGN representation of the game: open the Import window, select "Paste Current
Game", correct the incorrect movement, and then select "Import".

Motion input keyboard

To enter moves on the keyboard, simply press the letter and digit keys. Please note that
accepted moves must be in SAN notation, without the capture symbol (x) or the promote
symbol (=). Moves are combined case-insensitively, so you can write [n][f][3] instead of
Nf3, for example, but see the note below about conflicts with pawn moves.
To ensure that no move is a prefix to any other move, the notation for king castling and
queenside is [O][K] and [O][Q] respectively, instead of the usual OO and OOO.
As you enter a move, the status bar will display the list of matching moves. You can press
the [space] bar at any time to choose the first matching move in the list and add it to the
game. To delete a character, press [Backspace] or [Delete].
Note that a lowercase letter matches a pawn first, so a [b] can match a pawn or a Bishop,
but if there is a conflict, you must use a capital letter [B] for the Bishop move.

Autocomplete
In the Options menu, you can turn automatic move completion on or off. With auto-
completion, a move is made as soon as you have written enough to distinguish it from any
other legal move. For example, with auto-completion, you would only have to type [n][f]
instead of [n][f][3] for Nf3 in the initial position.

Introducing null movements.

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Null (empty) moves can be useful in variations, where you want to skip a move to one
side. You can enter a null move with the mouse by capturing a king with the other king, or
with the keyboard by typing "-" (i.e., pressing the minus key twice).

Entering common annotation symbols.

You can also add common annotation symbols using the keyboard in the main window,
without needing to use the comment editor window. The following list shows the symbols
you can add and their keyboard shortcuts:
!: [!] [Return]
?: [?] [Return]
!?: [!][?] [Return]
?!: [?][!] [Return]
!!: [!][!] [Return]
??: [?][?] [Return]
+ -: [+] [-]
+/-: [+] [/]
+ =: [+] [=]
=: [=] [Back]
- +: [-] [+]
- / +: [-] [/]
= +: [=] [+]
Note: Scid uses some of these symbols for automatic annotations, too. For this purpose,
these symbols must be associated with a certain pawn value. These edge values can be
configured via Options / Game Info / Configure Informant Values. Note that since Scid 4.0
many NAGs can be displayed symbolically if your system supports UTF-8 correctly. The
connection between a numerical NAG value and its symbolic representation within Scid is
given on the standard NAG values page which can be accessed, for example. by Ctrl-N
from the comment editor.

SEARCHES IN SCID
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Scid can perform many different types of searches in a database. The three main types of
search are:
1) for the current council,
2) for specific part patterns and materials, and
3) By header information, such as players, result, date.
Apart from these, there is also an automatic search mode called the Tree window which is
explained separately.

The search filter

Searches in Scid are based on the concept of a filter. The filter represents a subset of the
current database; At any time, each game is either included or excluded from the filter.
With each type of search, you can choose to narrow the existing filter, add it, or ignore it
and search the entire database. This option allows you to build complex searches
incrementally.
You can also copy all games in the filter from one database to another, using the database
switcher window.
With exact position, tree or material/pattern searches, the move number of the first
matching position of each matching set is remembered, so when you load each set it will
display the corresponding position automatically.
Please note that searches only apply to mainline moves in a game, not moves in
variations.

Search: Current Board

This search finds games that contain the current displayed position, ignoring castling and
passage rights.
There are four types of table lookups available. All four require a position to have the
exact same material and side to move for a match. The types are:
[1] exact (the two positions must coincide in each square),
[2] pawns (pawn structure must match exactly, but other pieces can be anywhere),
[3] files (the number of white and black pawns in each file must match exactly, but
other pieces can be anywhere), and
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[4] material (pawns and pieces can be anywhere).
Pawn search is useful for studying openings by pawn structure, and file and material
searches are useful for finding similar positions in an endgame.
To search for an arbitrary position, you can set the position first (from the [Edit: Set Home
Table] menu) and then start the search.
You can request that the search search for variations (rather than just examining the
actual game moves) by selecting the Search in variations box, but this can make the search
much slower if your database is large and has many games with variations .

Search: Material / Pattern

This search is useful for finding endgame or midgame themes. You can specify minimum
and maximum quantities of each type of material, and find patterns like a Bishop on f7, or
a pawn on file f.
A number of common material and pattern builds are provided, such as Rook vs. Rook
endings. Pawn, or the isolated Queens pawns.

Tips:
The speed of pattern searches can vary widely. You can reduce the time needed for a
search by setting restrictions intelligently. For example, if you set the minimum number of
moves to 20 for an ending, all games that end in less than 20 moves can be skipped.
Search: Header
This search can be used to find aspects of the game that are stored in the header (such as
date, result, names, brands, and ratings), so there is no need to decipher any moves.
For a game to match a header search, all fields you specify must match.
The name fields (White, Black, Event, Site, and Round) match any text within the name,
with upper and lower case and spaces ignored.
You can perform wildcard searches in mixed case for the White, Black, Event, Site, and
Round fields (with? Representing one character and * representing zero or more
characters) by enclosing the search text in double quotes. For example, a search on the US
site. USA You will find US cities. USA And also the Lausanne SUI, which is probably not
what you wanted. A search for the site "*USA" (remember to use the double quotes) will
only match cities in the United States.
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If you are looking for a particular player (or a pair of opponents) as White or Black and it
doesn't matter what color they played, select the Ignore Colors option.
Additionally, a scorer can be searched for in the case insensitively. Please note that this
feature requires the annotator header field to be set correctly. The [only annotated
games] checkbox acts as a logical OR filter for flags, variations, annotations, which can be
used to select only games that have some type of annotation.
Finally, header search can be used to find any text (case-sensitive and wildcard-free) in the
PGN representation of each game. You can enter up to three phrases of text, and they
must all appear in a game for it to be a match. This search is very useful for searching the
comments or additional tags of a game (such as Lost in Time or Annotator), or for a
sequence of moves such as Bxh7+ and Kxh7 for a bishop sacrifice on h7 that was accepted.
However, this type of search can be very slow, since all games that match other criteria
must be decoded and scanned for text phrases. Therefore, it is a good idea to limit these
searches as much as possible. Here are some examples. To find games with sub-
promotions to a tower, search for =R and also set the Promotions flag to Yes. When
searching for text that would appear in comments, set the Comments flag to Yes. If you
are looking for the moves Bxh7+ and Kxh7, you can restrict the search to games with a
score of 1-0 and at least 40 half moves, for example, or do a material/pattern search first
to find games where the white bishop is move to h7.

Note: If you search by ECO code, games that do not have an ECO code attached are
ignored.

Saving search settings

The Material/Pattern and Header search windows provide a Save Settings button. This
allows you to save the current search settings for later use, in a SearchOptions file (suffix.
sso). To search using a previously saved SearchOptions (.sso) file, select [Open] from the
[Search] menu.

Search times and skipped games

Most searches generate a message indicating the time spent and the number of games
skipped. A skipped game is one that can be excluded from the search without decoding
any of its moves, based on information stored in the index. See the help page on file
formats for more information.
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THE CLIPBASE DATABASE

In addition to the databases you have open, Scid provides a database database, which is
like any other database, except that it only exists in memory and has no files for
permanent storage.
The clipbase is useful as a temporary database, for combining search results in more than
one database, or for treating search results as a separate database.
For example, suppose you want to prepare for an opponent and you have searched a
database so that the filter only contains games in which the opponent played a blank. You
can copy these games to the clip database (by dragging from your database to the
database in the database switcher window), switch to the database switcher window, and
then open the clipboard window. Tree to examine the players' repertoire.
Note that you can copy games in one database's filter directly to another open database
(without needing the clip database as an intermediate location) using the database
switcher window.

Please note that the clipbase cannot be closed; selecting the [File: Close] command while
in the clipbase is equivalent to [Edit: Restart Clipbase] which empties the clipbase.
The clipbase is limited to 100,000 games at any time as it only exists in memory.

GAME NOTES
Scid allows you to add notes to games. There are three types of annotations you can add
after a move: symbols, comments, and variations. This section describes manual
annotations; see Analysis for the analysis supported by the engine.

Symbols and comments

Symbols are used to indicate an evaluation of position (such as "+ -" or "=") or to denote
good ("!") and bad ("?") moves, while comments can be any text. To add symbols and
comments to a game, use the comments editor window. There is also a help page that
shows standard symbol values.
Note that each move can have more than one annotation symbol, but only one comment.
A comment before the first move of the game is printed as text before the start of the
game.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Variations
A move variation is an alternative sequence of moves at a particular point in a game.
Variations can contain comments and even recursively have subvarieties. The buttons on
the board with a "V" symbol, and the commands in the [Edit] menu, can be used to create,
navigate, and edit variations.
Keyboard shortcuts
When a move has variations, they are displayed in the game information area. The first
will be called v1, the second v2, etc. You can click on a variation to enter it or press "v." In
the latter case, the Variation window will open, allowing you to select a variation using the
cursor keys. Setting Options/Moves/Show Variation Window will automatically open this
window whenever a move with a variation is encountered while navigating the game
using the cursor keys. In the variation window, the variation can be entered by selecting it
with the up/down cursor keys and pressing enter or clicking the mouse. This allows
navigation through the game with just the cursor keys. To leave a variation, you can use
the "z" shortcut key. At the beginning of the variation, the up arrow can be used
alternatively.
Please note that in case a game has variations, you can also enter the variation by simply
playing the move of the variation in question. To explicitly add a new variation that starts
with the same movement (for example, to simplify deeply nested variation trees), press
Ctrl-A to explicitly add a variation and only then play the movement.
The Settings / Moves / Show arrows for variations options can be configured to show
existing variations on the main board. This can be especially useful on computers with
small screens (Netbooks) and/or in conjunction with disabling the PGN window and the
game information area (Options / Windows / Show game information).
Null movements
Sometimes you may find it useful in a variation to skip a move, for one thing. For example,
you may want to add move 14. Bd3 to a variation and signal that it threatens 15. Bxh7 +
Kxh7 16. Ng5+ with an attack. You can do this by making a null move between 14. Bd3 and
15. Bxh7+, in the previous example. A null move is displayed as "-" and can be inserted
using the mouse by making an illegal move of capturing one king with the other, or from
the keyboard by typing "-" (two minus signs).
Note that null moves are not part of the PGN standard, so if you export games with null
moves to a PGN file, Scid will give you (among other export options) an option to keep the
null moves or convert them to comments so that they are compatible with others.
software. See the Export help page for more details.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Also note that Scid is capable of handling the Z0 move as a null move, a notation that is
common in some commercial chess applications.
THE ANALYSIS WINDOW
The Scid analysis window shows the analysis by a chess program (known as an engine) of
the current position of the board. Whenever the board changes, Scid sends the new
position to the motor and displays its evaluation of that position. Currently, up to two
engines can be run simultaneously. To start the first scan engine, you can use the shortcut
F2 , for the second engine F3 . To quickly close the engine window just press ESC .

The main information of the current analysis is displayed at the top of the window. The
first number means the evaluation value in pawn units. The score displayed in the analysis
window is always from the perspective of white, so a negative score indicates that black is
better. Depth: shows the search depth already reached by the engines' calculations in half
movements. The number after Nodes: gives the number of positions analyzed for the
current result, while the number of positions per second (kn/s) is shown in parentheses.
Time: Finally shows the amount of time spent for the current analysis.

Additional information can be accessed using the button . A new line will be added to
the status area showing the current movement analyzed, the number of tablebase hits, a
more accurate number of nodes analyzed per second, the engine hash watermark, and
the current load of the CPU. Generally, this information is hidden to save space for
analysis.
If the engine only analyzes the line, it considers the main continuation, the bottom box in
the window (with the scroll bar) shows the history of evaluations produced by the engine
for the current position, so you can see how the evaluation has changed.
However, many recent UCI engines allow multiple lines to be analyzed at once. Using this
Multi-PV feature, the user can also see what the engine thinks is the second or third best
continuation. The best line is always at the top and highlighted for easy reading. If an
engine allows Multi-PV analysis, the spin box below the analysis lines can be used to set
the number of main variations that should be calculated and displayed. In this case,
instead of the calculation history, only the resulting main lines are displayed. However, if
the number of lines
main is set to 1, you can view the evaluation history again. The swing box is disabled, if an
engine offers this feature.
Please note that the output of the current analysis can be hidden/shown by right-clicking
in the analysis window. In this mode only the current evaluation is displayed in the status
line.
To add the best move chosen by the engine as a new move in the current game, press the
button Add movement. If the entire engine main line must be added, simply use the
button Add variation. In case an engine offers Multi-PV mode, you can use the Add All
Variations button ( ) to add all major variations to the game. Inserting variations from
the analysis window will also add the engine name as a comment to the game.

To temporarily interrupt the calculation process, the stop engine button can be used ( ).
Once pressed, this button changes to the engine start button ( ) which will restart the
engine analysis. However, keep in mind that most engines will restart the entire analysis
again, forgetting all results that were achieved in a previous run. Only a few engines can
reuse the results they have calculated until the analysis was stopped. For the first scan,
the on/off engine is assigned to the F4 hotkey, while for the second engine F5 can be
used.
To configure an engine to analyze a position in the background while using other Scid
functions, the position can be locked with the button . Scid now stops sending any
changes from the main board to the motor, and the motor remains calculating the
position.
To end the current game by the engine ("shoot" or "demo" mode), you can use the button
End game. To indicate shooting mode, this button becomes . This feature is only
available for the first scan engine.

The list of scanning engines

Scid maintains a list of the engines it has used, along with an estimated Elo rating (if you
guess one; also, some sites on the Internet offer these values as a result of large engine
tournaments) and the date it was used by last time each engine. You can sort the list of
engines by name, Elo rating or date. Select the New or Edit buttons to add a new engine to
the list or edit the details of an existing entry
Engine controls and directories
For each engine, you must specify the executable file to run and in which directory Scid
should run it.
The most likely cause of engine startup problems is the choice of the directory in which
the engine should run. Some engines require initialization or opening the book file in your
home directory to run correctly. Other engines (like Crafty) write log files to the directory
they start in, so you'll need to run them in a directory where you have write access. If the
directory setting for an engine is ".", Scid will simply start the engine in the current
directory.
So if an engine that should run fine on Scid won't start, try changing its directory settings.
To prevent engines from creating log files in many different directories, I recommend
starting engines in the Scid user files directory (this is where the [Link] file is located on
Windows, or ~/. scid / on Unix); There is a button in the dialog to edit the engine details
marked as [Link] dir on Windows or ~/. scid on Unix which allows you to configure the
engine to boot in this directory.
If an engine requires additional parameters for startup (for example, a specific opening
book), they can be specified in the Parameters field. Please consult the motors
documentation for required parameters, if any.
URL allows you to set the engines home page. This is useful for checking for updates, for
example. Or to take a look at recent developments. Pressing the Open... button will open
this page in the web browser.
If the engine uses the UCI protocol, check the appropriate box. In general, there are two
main engine protocols available today: xboard is sometimes called winboard (not to be
checked for UCI ), which many engines use, especially older ones, and the UCI protocol
which can be found at most modern chess engines. The main advantage of a UCI engine is
that this protocol allows the user to configure the parameters of the engines from their
preferred chess GUI, such as Scid, while other engines typically use configuration files that
need to be edited. Therefore, if the motor is a UCI motor, pressing the Configure UCI
Motor button provides a graphical dialog where all motor parameters can be adjusted to
the users liking. This dialog will be different for each engine, as each engine has other
parameters that can be configured. Most of them will influence the engine's play style.
Please consult the engines documentation.
Training
With the Training button, you can play moves against the analysis engine. The time for
each movement is fixed, and analysis results are not displayed when training mode is
activated.
Scoring a game

The Add Variation button ( either ) in the analysis window adds the current score and
the best line of play as a new variation in the game.
You can do this automatically for a series of moves (scoring the game) by pressing the
Score button, . Additionally, best line engines and informant-style evaluation symbols
are added in this process. First, the parameters for automatic annotations must be
configured:
Set the time between moves in seconds - this gives the time the engine can spend
analyzing before moving on to the next move.
Add Variations: Here, one has the option whether moves should be added for both sides
or just one color, whether all moves should get a score or only if the game move is not the
best move according to the engines evaluation . Additionally, one can add an annotation
only if the game move is an error. The threshold defines the drop in evaluation needed to
indicate an error, the number is given in units of pawns (i.e. 0.2 means that, if the
evaluation falls by more than 2 centi pawns, the game move is an error).
The variations noted will include in-game variations in the engine analysis. Short
annotations will only add minimal annotations, i.e. pure lines and NAG codes without
engine names and usually without current scores.
Adding score to the annotations will add the evaluation of the engines in pawn units to the
annotations. This information can later be used to draw a game score graph as a
visualization of the positions achieved.
Add Scorer Tag will add a "Scorekeeper" tag to the game header. This is for short
annotations mode which does not mean which engine was used to get the current ratings
and lines.
Use Book allows the specification of an opening book. The moves listed in this opening
book are skipped in the scoring process, that is, scoring automatically starts in the middle
game.
Score multiple games Scid will first score the current game with the specified settings,
store the results, then automatically load the next game and score that as well. This is
repeated until the loaded game reaches the number given in the box.
turn. Using this procedure, many games can be scored automatically without user
intervention.
Finding opening errors will check the opening phase up to the specified movement for
errors. Additionally, the Annotator tag gets an entry "opBlunder X" where X is the move in
which the error occurred.
Mark Tactical Drills This can be used to generate drills for the Find Best Move training
feature. This option is only available for UCI engines.
After pressing the Ok button, the autoplay mode is enabled and the engine starts
analyzing the game. When autoplay mode is used and the analysis window is open, a
variation containing the score and best line of play for each position is automatically
added as autoplay mode moves through the game. Only positions are scored from the
current position until the end of the game (or until you exit autoplay mode), so you can
skip scoring opening moves by moving to a midgame position before starting play.
automatic.
To cancel annotation at any time, simply turn off autoplay mode, for example by pressing
the Escape key in the main window.
Please note that, for simplicity, the Annotate button is only available in the window
opened as Analysis Engine 1. If you open an engine as Analysis Engine 2, you cannot use it
to annotate the game.
Analysis Dashboard

By pressing the button An analysis window will show or hide the analysis board,
which shows the position at the end of the current best line of play found by the engine.
This works for most Scid compatible engines, but may not work for all; It depends on the
motion notation a motor uses.
Engine priority
If an engine is using too much CPU time and affecting the use of Scid or other applications,
it may be useful to activate the low CPU priority button ; gives the engine a low priority
for CPU scheduling. On Windows, engines run at low priority by default.

Note that on Unix systems, engine priority cannot be returned to normal.

BOOK WINDOW
A list of all the book files present in the Scid books directory is presented in the drop-down
list at the top of the window. To specify the directory where Scid should search for
opening books, select Options/Books directory from the menu. The active workbook can
be easily selected from that list.
The book format is the one used by Polyglot and engines such as Fruit and Toga, its usual
extension is .bin. Currently, to build new workbooks, one has to use polyglot on the
command line. Please see the polyglots documentation on how to create a book.
For each position, the book window shows all the possible movements it contains and
their relative weights in percentage. When a transaction is entered, the book window
updates. Clicking on a move in the book window will play that move at the current
position.
At the bottom of the book window, the Other Moves button displays moves that are not
present in the book, but are part of the lines that appear later in the book. This allows an
engine to play the best moves and have book answers available in the book if the
opponent chooses moves that are not in the book. Visualizing those Other Moves shows
where there are holes in a book.
The book in use can be selected from the drop-down list in the book window.

THE CALCULATION OF THE WINDOW OF VARIATION.

This training exercise is also known as the Stoyko exercise. Its purpose is to analyze a
complex position and evaluate as many sound lines as possible, and give a correct
evaluation for each of them.

Setting
Three parameters are established:

 The UCI engine that will analyze several lines.

 The time, in seconds, that the engine will use to analyze the position.
 The time, in seconds, that the engine will use to analyze each line entered by the
user.
Entering lines
Moves are entered as usual with mouse clicks on the board, but will not be displayed. At
the end of a line, the user must provide an evaluation by clicking one of the buttons with
NAG codes.
Evaluation Verification
Each time a line is evaluated, the engine calculates its value and adds the line and score
just below the user's.
Done with position
When the user thinks they have found all the best lines, pressing Done with Position will
add to the game (with the comment Lost Line), the lines that have a higher score than the
best line entered by the user.

THE COMMENT EDITOR WINDOW

The comment editor window allows you to add or edit comments and symbolic
annotation symbols for moves in the active chess game.

Annotation symbols
Scid uses the PGN standard for annotation symbols, accepting NAG (numeric annotation
glyph) values for annotations. Some of the most common symbols (such as "!" Or "+ -")
are displayed as symbols and have a button in the comment editor window for quick
entry. For other symbols, you can enter the appropriate numerical NAG value, which is a
number from 1 to 255. For example, the NAG value 36 means "White has the initiative"
and will be displayed as "$36" in the game's PGN text. If your system correctly supports
UTF-8 character sets, many of the NAG symbols can be displayed by their glyphs.
See the NAG values help page for NAG values defined by the PGN standard. This page can
be accessed from the comment editor by pressing Ctrl-N.
Tip: You can add the common move evaluation symbols (!,, !!, ??, !? And?!) While in the
main window, without using the comment editor window, by typing the symbol followed
by [ Return key. This is especially useful if you are entering chess moves with the
keyboard. Also note that the PGN window context menu offers many of the most common
symbols for direct annotation.
Comments
You can edit comments by typing in the text area provided and using the Delete, Revert
and Store buttons. It is not necessary to press the Store button to update a comment; It is
automatically updated every time you exit the comment editor window, e.g. activating
another window or tab.
You can move through the moves of a game directly from the commentary editor by
pressing Alt and the left/right cursor keys. To jump from NAG entry and free text entry,
Alt-N can be used for quick navigation.
Tip: To add a comment before the first move in a variation, go to the first move and press
the left arrow key once and then insert the comment. Also note that pressing Ctrl-A can
add a variation directly from the comment editor. This makes it easy to create a pre-
movement commentary for the first movement of a variation.
Squares to color
Colored markers can be added to the chessboard by drawing them on the small
expandable help board to the left of the comment window. The display of this dashboard
is enabled by . Scid will remember the state of this board if the options are saved.
Once the small help table has expanded, select the marker to use from the buttons below
the table and the color from the color palette above and click the square to mark.
A square can also be colored using a special embedded command that can appear
anywhere in a comment. The command format is:

[% draw marker, square, color]

where square is a square name such as d4 and color is any recognized color name (such as
red, blue4, dark green, light steel blue, etc.) or RGB code (a # followed by six hexadecimal
digits, such as #a0b0c8). If color is omitted, the default value is red. Marker
A comment can contain any number of color commands, but each must have its own [%
draw...] tag. For example, the comment text.

Now d6 [% draw full, d6, net] is weak and the knight can attack it from b5. [% draw circle,
b5, #000070]
will color d6 red and b5 with the dark blue color #000070.
drawing arrows
You can draw an arrow from one square to another using a special comment command
similar to the coloring squares described above. The format is:

[% arrow from square to square color]

where fromSquare and toSquare are square names like d4 and color is any recognized
color name (such as red, blue4, etc.) or RGB code (such as #a0b0c0). If color is omitted,
the default value is red.
For example, the comment text.
The c3 knight and c4 bishop control the weak d5 square. [% arrow c3 d5 red] [% arrow c4
d5 blue]
will draw a red arrow from c3 to d5 and a blue one from c4 to d5.
Note Colored squares and arrows can be entered directly on the dashboard without using
the comment editor using the mouse buttons. For colored squares you can click with the
Shift key pressed on the square in question. The Shift-Left button marks the square in
green, the middle button in yellow and the right button in red. To draw arrows you can
press Ctrl and click in the source and destination boxes. The left mouse button once again
appears green, the center button appears yellow, and the right mouse button appears as a
red arrow.
THE CROSSTABLE WINDOW
The crosstab window displays the tournament crosstab for the current game. Scid
searches for all games in the same tournament every time you refresh the crosstab
window (by pressing its Refresh button, pressing the Return key in the crosstab window,
or by typing Control + Shift + X). like the current game.
Any game played up to twelve months before or after the current game, with exactly the
same Event and Site tags, is considered to be in the tournament.
A single left mouse click on any result in the crosstab loads the corresponding game. You
can add all games in the tournament to the filter with the Add to Filter button in the
crosstab window.

crosstable window menus

The [File] menu allows you to print the current table to a file in plain text, LaTeX table
format, or HTML.
The [Display] menu allows you to choose the table format: All-play-all, Swiss or Knockout
or Auto.
The All-Play-All format (for round robin type events) is limited to 30 players, but the Swiss
format (for tournaments with many players) can feature up to 200 players and up to 20
rounds. Automatic, which automatically chooses the best format for each tournament, is
the default.
Note that Scid uses each game's Round tag to produce a Swiss cross table, so you won't
see any games on the Swiss table for a tournament if your games don't have numerical
round values: 1, 2, 3, etc
The Show menu also allows you to customize the data presented to include or exclude
player ratings, countries, and titles. You can also choose whether to display color
assignments in Swiss tables.
The Separate Score Groups option only affects the table layout when players are sorted by
score: it causes a blank line to be inserted between each group of players with the same
score.
The [Sort] menu allows you to sort players by name, rating, or score; by score is the
default.
The [Color] menu allows you to turn color display (hypertext) on or off. Since it can be
time-consuming to format and display large crosstabs in hypertext, selecting plain text for
large events will save you a lot of time. However, in plain text mode you cannot click on
players or games.

Duplicate games in cross tables

To get good results with the crosstab, you should flag duplicate games for removal and
your games should have consistent spelling of player names, sites, and events. See the
database maintenance page for help removing duplicate games and editing (or spell-
checking) player/event/site names.

THE DATABASE SWITCH WINDOW

The Database Switcher window provides a view that makes it easy to switch between
databases or copy sets between databases. The name, filter status, and chart type icon for
each database are displayed, and the active database is highlighted with a yellow
background.
You can open the database switcher window from the [Windows] menu, or by using its
shortcut key: Control + D.
To copy all leaked games in one database to another, drag with the left mouse button
from the source database to the destination database. You will then see a confirmation
dialog box (if the destination database is not the clip database) if the games can be copied,
or an error message if the games cannot be copied (for example, if the clip database
selected data is not open).
Right-clicking on a database produces a pop-up menu that applies to that database, from
which you can change the database type icon or reset its filter. You can also use this menu
to change the window orientation (to arrange the database slots vertically or horizontally)
which is useful for smaller screens.
THE EMAIL WINDOW
Scid's email manager window provides you with a way to manage correspondence chess
games played via email. If you don't play chess via email, this won't interest you. But if you
play correspondence chess via email, you can send your emails directly from Scid!
To use the email manager:
1) Create the game(s) for your opponent in the database.
2) In the email manager window, select Add and enter your opponents' details: name,
email address and game numbers in the database.
3) Select Send Email in the email window whenever you add moves to games and want
to send a message.
When you send an email message, Scid generates the message with the games in PGN
format without comments, annotations or variations, since you normally wouldn't want
your opponent to see your analysis. You can edit the message before sending it to add
conditional motions or other text.
For each opponent, you can have any number of games; one or two is the most common.
Please note that Scid does not check if game numbers change, so after setting up your
opponents' details, be careful to avoid deleting games or sorting your email game
database, as this will rearrange the games and the game numbers for each opponent will
be incorrect.

Limitations
Scid doesn't yet have the ability to check your email folder, so you still have to add your
opponents' moves to games manually.

Setting
A copy of each email message sent by Scid is stored in the file ~/. scid/[Link]. If you
want them to be stored in a different file, you will need to edit the tcl/[Link] file and
recompile Scid.
Scid can send email messages using an SMTP server or sendmail. Use the Settings button
in Email Manager to specify which one you want to use.
Scid stores opponent details for a database in a file with the same name as the database
and the suffix “. sem".

THE FILE FINDER WINDOW

File Finder helps you find files of any type that you can use in Scid: databases, PGN files,
EPD files, and repertoire files.
The Finder displays useful information about each file, such as its size (see below) and the
last modification date. You can open any displayed file by selecting it with a single left
mouse click.

Searching subdirectories
When you want to search for all files in all subdirectories of the current directory, select
the Search in subdirectories check box. This will cause Scid to recursively examine each
subdirectory for files that can be opened in Scid. This can take a long time if there are
many subdirectories, so you may not want to do it for a directory near the root of the file
system. You can stop searching for files by pressing the Stop button.

File sizes
The meaning of a file size displayed by the Finder depends on the type of file. For Scid
databases and PGN files, it is the number of games. For EPD files, it is the number of
positions. For directory files, it is the number of (include or exclude) lines.

For all file types except Scid databases, the file size is an estimate taken by examining only
the first 64 kilobytes of the file, so the size may not be correct for files larger than 64 kb .
Estimated sizes are shown with a tilde (~) to indicate that they are not exact.
For easy manipulation of Scid databases, the Finder offers a context menu. From this
menu, which can be accessed by right-clicking as usual, the following functions can be
performed
Open will open the file in question, it is the same as clicking on the file with the left mouse
button.
Backup copies the file to its original name appended by the current date and time.
Copy copies the selected database to a new location.
Move moves the selected database to a new location.
Delete deletes the selected database.
These functions are especially useful for Scid databases, since they consist of several files.

THE GAME LIST WINDOW

The Game List window displays a one-line summary for each game included in the current
filter.

Browsing the game list

You can scroll through the list of games using the slider bar or the four buttons below the
list. You can also use the [Home], [End], [Page Down], [Page Down] keys, and the arrow
keys to scroll using the keyboard.
You can find the next game in the list that has certain text in the White, Black, Event, or
Site field, using the Search text box.

Actions in the games on the list.

To load a game from the game list, double-click the left mouse button on the game.
Clicking the middle mouse button displays the initial moves of a game; This can be useful
for checking the opening of a game before loading it.
The right mouse button produces a menu for the selected game, in which you can
navigate or merge the game (see below), delete (or recover) the game, or exclude it from
the filter. Please note that deleting a game only activates its deletion mark; It will remain
in the database until you compact it.
Setting up the game list
Click the left or right mouse button on a column title to configure the game list. You can
modify the widths, add or remove columns, and change the color of each column.
If you just want to change the width of a column, there is a shortcut: pressing the Control
(or Shift) key, pressing the left mouse button on the column heading will make it
narrower, and pressing the right mouse button will make it wider. broad.

Alter the size of the game list.

The size of the game list window is stored in the options file whenever you save the
options. Therefore, if you want the game list to display 10 games by default, simply resize
the game list window and then select [Save Options] from the [Options] menu.

Navigation and game fusion.

The right mouse menu of the game list (and some other windows, such as the opening
report window and the best game list tree window) offer the option to load, browse, or
merge a game.
When Find Game is selected, the moves for the selected game (without comments or
variations) will be displayed in a separate window. This is a useful way to preview another
game without affecting the currently loaded game. The size of this window can be
changed by the +/- keys or Ctrl-Mousewheel.
The Merge Game feature provides a way to include the selected game as a variation of the
current game. Scid finds the deepest point where the selected game differs from the
current game (taking transpositions into account) and adds a variation for the selected
game at that position. The selected game can also be combined with the current game of
another open database (this database should not be set to read-only). You can change the
number of moves from the selected game to be displayed, depending on whether you are
interested in adding the entire game or just its opening phase.
THE IMPORT WINDOW
The Scid Import window provides you with an easy way to paste a PGN format game into
Scid from another application or window.
The large white frame in the window is where you type or paste game text in PGN format,
and the gray frame below provides information on any errors or warnings.

Editing the current game with the Import window.

The Import window also doubles as a convenient way to make some changes to the
current game: you can paste the current game into the Import window (using the Paste
Current Game button), edit the text, and click Import when you're done.

PGN tags in the Import window

Scid expects to see PGN header tags like
[Result "*"]
before any move, but you can only paste on a fragment of the game like
1.e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. Qh5?! Nf6?? 4.Qxf7 #1-0
without any header tag and Scid will import it.

Using PGN files in Scid

If you want to use a PGN format file in Scid, but don't want to convert it with pgn scid first,
there are two possible ways.
First, you can import the games in the file to an existing database with the menu
command [Tools: Import PGN Games File...].
The alternative is to open the PGN file directly in Scid. However, PGN format files are
opened read-only and consume more memory than a comparable Scid database, so it is
only recommended for relatively small PGN files.
OPENING COACH
A Scid database can be used as a repertoire, each set representing an opening line. Sets
may contain variations and may also contain NAG values to specify values for each line,
allowing preferred or doubtful lines to be marked. To be a valid database for the opening
trainer, it is also required to be of the appropriate type. That is, if apertures for white are
to be trained, the database must be of type Apertures for White (similar for black and
both colors). The type can be configured through the Maintenance window by selecting
the icon or through the context menu of the database switches.

Creating a repertoire base

Before running the opening trainer, note that the entire repertoire database will be
loaded into the trainer. For this reason, it is good to use a smaller database. It's a good
idea to first assemble a large database of quality games, then filter the database for a
specific opening (e.g. Ruy Lopez). These leaked games could then be copied to a new
database for that specific opening you had in mind (please name it cleverly, so you can
easily understand which opening it is for). Then, instead of a game database of about 2
million, you have a much smaller repertoire database that will be quickly loaded into the
opening trainer.
You can also purchase or download special databases covering particular openings,
although we cannot point you in the direction of any possible sources in this help file.
Once you have a smaller database targeted only at the opening you need, set the
mentioned type in the Maintenance window. You will need to restart Scid to use the
opening trainer with this new repertoire database.
If you wish, to make the opening trainer work better, you can mark certain games as
"White Opening" or "Black Opening". An exhaustive way to do this would be to go through
the entire database 'by hand' and assign the flags individually. A faster way, may be to
filter your database for blank openings, then set the flag for all those filtered games, and
similarly for black openings. Remember that you can have a repertoire for black and white
in the same database. You can set the flags this way through the Maintenance window.
How you choose to filter games for flagging is entirely up to the user. One possible way is
to filter games 1-0 for white openings and 0-1 for black openings. However, this way is not
the best, and the user must find the system they are most comfortable with.
Finally, to perform better, the opening coach can use NAG values to understand how a
move should be graded in the opening. See the NAG annotation help for more
information.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Using the opening trainer
To first use the opening trainer, open the repertoire database you created or one of the
appropriate type. Then choose Play/Training/Opening Trainer. The next dialog offers some
options about the next training session.
white/black/both are used to select the side of the aperture to train
Allowing only the best moves will treat lower-rated moves as a bug. The grade of a line
is given by the NAG values.
The opponent plays the best moves Scid will always play the best continuation according
to the repertoire database. If not selected, Scid is allowed to choose lower rated continues
as well. This is useful for learning rebuttals as well.
Marked Lines Only Scid will only play lines from games marked Aperture for White or
Aperture for Black.
Reset Statistics will reset the statistics before the training session.
Press the Continue button to continue the training.
The actual opening trainer will appear. Here you can show possible candidate moves
(hidden by default) and also show their values simply by enabling these functions. If the
Show Statistics option is enabled, the current statistics are displayed in the color-coded
fields below the check box. Otherwise, general statistics can be accessed with the Show
Report button.
Opening of the coach's statistics.
Four numbers are displayed showing the statistics of the current position:
Green the number of moves played by the user that are good moves.
Yellow the number of doubtful moves played that are in the repertoire.
Red the number of moves played that are not in the repertoire.
Blank the number of times the position was found
The report
The report displays statistics for the entire repertoire and provides information about the
user's knowledge:
Positions in the directory the total number of positions in the directory (all lines in the
database)
Unplayed positions are positions that were never found.
Positions played the positions that were played and the sum of the number of times they
met. Note that this figure represents the sum of the occurrences of a position on all
opening lines: this number can quickly become large for positions that are close to the
starting position
Success the number of good moves made by the player.
Doubtful moves the number of weak moves made by the player.
Outside the repertoire the number of moves performed by the player that were not in
the repertoire.

REPORTS
A Report in Scid is a document that contains information about a particular position
and/or player. There are two types of reports that Scid can generate: Opening Reports and
Player Reports.

Opening reports
Scid can produce an opening report that shows interesting data about an opening
position. To generate an opening report, first make sure the position displayed is the one
you want a report for, then select Open Report from the Tools menu.
The Opening Report window displays the results of the report generated by Scid. The File
menu has commands to save the report to a file in plain text, HTML, or LaTeX format.
The first sections of the report present information on the games that reach the report
position and the moves played from the position. You can see if the opening is becoming
more popular, if it has many short draws, and what move orders (transpositions) are used
to reach it.
The Positional Themes section reports the frequency of certain common positional
themes in report sets. For this, the first 20 moves of each game are examined (hence the
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
first 40 positions of each game after the initial position). To be counted as containing a
theme, a game must contain that particular theme in at least 4 positions of its first 20
moves. This prevents the brief appearance of a theme (such as an isolated queen's pawn
that is quickly captured) distorting the results.
The final and largest part of the report is the theoretical table. When saving the report to
a file, you can choose to save only the theory table, a compact report without the theory
table, or the entire report.
Almost all report sections can be turned on or off or adjusted in the report opening
options, so you can customize a report to only show the information that interests you.
Most information elements in the report window that are displayed in color invoke some
action when selected with the left mouse button. For example, you can click a game
reference to load that game, or click a positional topic to set the filter to contain only the
report games where that topic occurred.
Choosing Merge Games will merge the games from the opening report to the currently
displayed game. This is merged into all games as variations of the game, including the full
reference.

Favorites
The [Favorites] menu in the report window allows you to maintain a collection of favorite
opening report positions and generate opening reports for all of those positions easily.
Selecting "Add Report..." from the Favorites menu will add the current position as a
favorite report position; You will be prompted to enter a name that will be used as the file
name when favorite reports are generated.
Select "Generate Reports..." from the Favorites menu to generate a report for each of
your favorite reports using the current database. A dialog box appears allowing you to
specify the type and format of the report, and a directory where the report files will be
saved. A suffix appropriate for the format you selected (for example, ".html" for HTML
format) will be added to each report file name.
Player reports
A player report is very similar to a home report, but contains information about single-
player games with white or black pieces. You can generate a player report from the Tools
menu or from the Player Information window.
The specified player can generate a player report for all games with the specified pieces or
only for the subset of those games that reach the current position on the chessboard in
the main window.

Boundaries
There is a 2000 game limit for most data generated by reports, so if the report position
occurs in more than 2000 games, some results may be slightly incorrect.
Additionally, there is a limit of 500 games for the theory table. If the report position occurs
in more than 500 games, only the 500 games with the highest average Elo rating are used
to generate the theory table. You can adjust the number of games used to generate the
theory table in the Report options.

THE PGN WINDOW

Scid's PGN window displays the current game content in standard PGN representation. In
motion text, comments appear {in braces} and variations appear (in parentheses).

PGN format
PGN (Portable Game Notation) is a common standard for transferring chess games
between computer programs. A PGN game consists of two sections. The first is the
header, which contains tags such as [Target "Kasparov, Gary"] and [Result "1/2-1/2"].
The second section contains the actual moves of the game, in standard algebraic notation
(SAN), along with any variations, annotation symbols, and comments.
Actions in the PGN window
You can use the PGN window to navigate the game: clicking the left mouse button will
move you to that move. Left clicking on a comment will edit it. The y arrow keys (v and z
keys to enter or leave variations) function for game navigation as displayed in the main
window. As in the main window, pressing v will open the variation window, allowing you
to select a variation with the cursor keys. Setting Options/Moves/Show Variation Window
will automatically open this window whenever a move with a variation is encountered
while navigating the game using the cursor keys. In the variation window, the variation
can be entered by selecting it with the up/down cursor keys and pressing enter or clicking
the mouse. This allows navigation through the game with just the cursor keys. Clicking on
a move with the middle mouse button will display a small table. When you click the right
mouse button, a context menu will appear.
The following functions are available from the context menu.
Delete Variation: Delete the current variation
Make First Variation: Moves the current variation to the first position of all variations at
that level
Promote Variation to Mainline Promotes the current variation to the mainline and
reduces the current mainline to a variation.
Strip: Moves from the beginning.
Strip: moves to the end
Strip: Comments Remove all comments
Strip: Variations Removes all variations.

PGN display options

The PGN window menus contain options that affect the display of the PGN window. Scid
can display the game in color or plain text: see the [Display] menu in the PGN window. The
color screen is easier to read and lets you select movements and feedback with the
mouse, but it's much slower to update. For very long games, you may want to select plain
text display.
You can also alter the formatting of comments and variations, choosing to display them
indented on a separate line for greater visibility.
The PGN display options and PGN window size are saved in the options file each time you
save Options from the [Options] menu of the main window.

THE PIECE TRACKER WINDOW

The Piece Tracker is a tool that tracks the movements of a particular piece across all
games in the current filter, and generates a "footprint" showing how often it has visited
each square.
To use the Piece Tracker, first make sure the filter contains the games you are interested
in, such as games that reach a particular opening position or all games where a given
player had the white pieces. Then select the piece to track and set other tracking options;
These are explained below. Then press the Update button.
Tracked part movement information is displayed in two ways: a graphical "footprint" and
a text list with one line of data per square.

Selecting the tracked part

The chess pieces are shown as in the standard chess starting position below the footprint
board. A single piece (such as white b1 knight or black d7 pawn) can be selected with the
left mouse button, and all pieces of the same type and color (such as all white pawns or
both black rooks) can be selected using Button right mouse.

Other part tracking settings

The movement number range controls when tracking should start and stop in each game.
The default range of 1-20 (meaning tracking should stop after Black's 20th move) is
appropriate for examining opening themes, but (for example) a range like 15-35 would be
better when looking for trend trends. middle game.
There are two types of statistics that the tracker can generate:
% Move Squared Games: Shows what proportion of filtered games contain a move for
the piece tracked to each square. This is the default setting and generally the most
appropriate option.
% Time in Each Square: Shows the proportion of time the tracked part has spent in each
square.
Tips
There are (at least) three good uses for the Piece Tracker: opening preparation, midgame
themes, and player preparation.
For opening preparation, use the parts tracker with the arbor open. By tracking the pieces,
you can see trends in the current opening, such as common pawn pushes, knight outposts,
and where bishops are most often placed. You may find it useful to set the move number
range to start after the current move in the game, so moves made to reach the current
position are not included in the statistics.
For mid-game themes, the piece tracker can be useful when the filter has been set to
contain a certain ECO range (using a header search) or perhaps a pattern like a white IQP
(using a Material/pattern search ). Set the range of motion to something appropriate (e.g.
20-40), and keep track of the pieces to see pawn pushes in the late middlegame or late
game, for example.
For player setup, use a header search or the player info window to find all of a given
player's games with a color. The Piece Tracker can be used to discover the player's
probability of being a bishop fianchetto, a castle on the queenside, or setting up a d5 or e5
pawn wedge, for example.

THE PLAYER FINDER WINDOW

The Player Finder window displays a list of player names in the current database. Selecting
a player will open the Player Information window to display more detailed information
about that player.
Five columns are displayed showing each player's name, peak Elo rating, number of games
played, and the year of their oldest and newest game. Click any column heading at the top
of the list to sort the list by that column.
The controls below the list allow you to filter the contents of the list. You can modify the
maximum list size, enter a case-insensitive player name prefix (such as "ada" to search for
"Adams"), and restrict Elo rating ranges and the number of games played.
THE PLAYER INFORMATION WINDOW
The player information window is produced or updated each time you left-click a player's
name in the game information area (below the chess board) or in the leaderboard
window.
It shows (hopefully) useful information about the player, including their success with
Blanco y Negro, favorite openings (by ECO code), and ranking history.
All percentages shown are an expected score (success rate), from the player's perspective,
so higher is always better for the player, whether black or white.
You can view the player's rating history on a graph by pressing the graph rating button.
Any number printed in red can be clicked with the left mouse button to set the filter for
the games it represents.
If a current version of the grade file (see the Scid website) is online, there may be links to
additional resources that can be accessed by users' web browser, provided Internet access
is available. This information can be accessed with the following symbols in the player
information window (please note that not all symbols may be present):

Go to the FIDE player profile page.

Go to ICCF player profile page

Go to the player profile in the Deutscher Schachbund.

Go to the player profile at the British Chess Federation.

Go to the players profile in SchemingMind.

Call the players Wikipedia profile page. Scid will try to use the language set for Scid. If
there is no page available, it will fall back to German (for pure technical reasons).

Call the German National Library for books by or about the player.

An alternative way to access Wikipedia.

 Access player information in the virtual authority file (VIAF). This could be used to
summon books from/by this player in contributing national libraries.

TACTICAL GAME WINDOW

Play a tactical game against an engine that simulates an opponent with a given Elo rating.
The opponent is played by Phalanx and the trainer by Toga II. The correct engines are
automatically selected by their names and must be configured correctly (this is the default
when Scid is installed).
Please note that a special version of the Phalanx engine is required. This special version
comes with the Scid package.
The following parameters must be configured:
Fixed Level: Set a fixed Elo rating for the opponent
Random Level: Choose a random level between the minimum and maximum level
specified by the left and right slider respectively.
Opening:
Start New Game: Start a new game by choosing a random opening.
Start from current position: Allows the game to start with the current position on the
board.
Specific Opening: The opponent will play a specific opening, which can be chosen
from the list below. This is useful for opening training.
The engine analysis time limit allows you to limit the time used by the coach to check the
players' movements for errors. If this time is not limited, the coach can think in the
background.
To start a tactical game press Play
Note that a similar function can be achieved by playing a serious game against any UCI
engine that allows its strength to be limited.
THE TOURNAMENT FINDER WINDOW
The Tournament Finder allows you to find tournaments in the current database. Scans all
database games and collects data on found tournaments. Please note that two games are
considered to be in the same tournament if they have the same event tag, the same site
tag, and were played within three months of each other.
You can limit the tournament list by number of players and games, date, average rating
and country, by editing the fields below the tournament list and then pressing the Refresh
button.
The displayed list can be sorted by date, number of players, number of games, average Elo
rating, site, event or winner's last name. Select the category from the [Sort] menu or click
a column title to change the sort field.
To load the first game of any tournament displayed, simply left-click when its line is
highlighted. This will also update the crosstab window if it is open. If you press the right
mouse button instead, the game will load and the Cross Box window will open even if it is
closed.
To speed up the tournament search process, it's a good idea to set a fairly small date
range (like a few years at most) or select a particular country (by its standard three-letter
code). Doing this will greatly reduce the number of games Scid must consider when trying
to form tournaments from the games in the database.
THE TREE WINDOW
The tree window displays information about all moves made from the current position in
the games in the database. In tree mode, the tree window automatically updates
whenever the main window pane changes. This can be slow for large databases and can
therefore be disabled using .

To display that a tree is not automatically updated, this button changes to .

To open the tree window, you can first open a database and then select Windows / Tree
Window (Ctrl-T) from the menu, or open the database as a tree directly from the file
menu.
Please note that whenever the tree window is refreshed, the filter will be reset and only
games containing the current position will be included. This is also the case if, for example.
a header search was performed - once the next move is entered, the tree window is
updated and the filter is set to games that match the tree window.
Left-clicking a move in the tree window adds that move to the game.

Tree window contents

The tree window shows the ECO code (if any), frequency (both number of plays and
percentage), and score for each move. The score is always calculated from White's
perspective, so 100% means all White wins and 0% means all Black wins. Scores are
highlighted for moves that have good (green) or bad (red) results. On average, a move
should score 53.8% for targets, the highlight appears if a move scores more than 3%
better or worse than this average and if at least 15 games are contained in the database.
The AvElo (average Elo) corresponds to the player's movement and the Perf
(performance) represents the opponent's strength. Additionally, AvYear shows the
average year of games played in this move and %Draws gives the draw percentage for the
displayed line. All these values are calculated for the database shown in the tree and
therefore depend on the games in this database.
Additional information is displayed if a mask has been opened. For the use of masks see
below.
Moves in the tree window can be sorted by move (alphabetically), ECO code, frequency or
score. You can change the sorting method using the [Sort] menu.

The best gaming window

The tree window has a command and a File menu button to open the Top Games window,
which displays a list of the highest-rated games in the currently displayed tree branch.
(Equivalently, you can use the button ). The games are listed in average ranking order,
and you can restrict the list to show games with a particular result and also limit the
number of games displayed in this list. Additionally, up to 4 flags from the games on the
list appear in the best games list. The special flag A marks a game as Scored, i.e. these
games contain comments, variations or NAG (or any combination of these). Please note
that if a header search was performed on the database, the best list of games is restricted
to the results of this header search.

Tree graph window

The buttons in the tree window include a button marked Chart ( ) that produces a
graphical display of the relative performance of each move from the current position. All
moves that have been played at least 1% of the time and at least 5 times are shown. The
percentage scores are always from the white's perspective, even when it is black to move.
Graphics can be saved in PostScript format via the file menu.
In the tree chart, a red line is drawn showing the average across all games from the
current position, and the area between 50 and 55% (where most standard starts are
expected to score) is colored blue to aid comparison of movements. Note that White
usually scores around 55% at master level chess.

Blocking the tree window

Each tree window is associated with a specific database, that is, if several databases are
opened simultaneously, multiple tree windows can exist. If the Lock button on the tree
window is enabled, closing the tree window will also close the database associated with
this specific tree. Additionally, this also closes the associated graph
or the best gaming windows. If the lock button is not checked, closing the tree will leave
all of these windows open and simply close the base tree view.
Please note that when opening a database as a tree from the file menu, the database will
be automatically locked by default.

Training
When the Training checkbox is selected in the tree window, Scid will perform a random
move every time you add a move to the game. The move Scid chooses depends on
database statistics, so Scid will choose a move played in 80% of database games with 80%
probability. Activating this feature, then hiding (or iconifying) the Tree window and playing
openings against a large database, is a great way to test your knowledge of the opening
repertoire. Another option for training an opening offers Training / Openings.
Cache for faster results
Scid maintains a cache of tree search results for positions with the most matching games.
If you go back and forth in a game in tree mode, you will see the tree window update
almost instantly when the position being searched is in the cache.
The tree window has a file menu command called Save Cache. When you select this, the
current contents of the in-memory tree cache are written to a file (suffixed with. stc) to
speed up future use of Tree mode with this database.
The Fill Cache File command in the tree window's file menu fills the cache file with data
for many starting positions. Performs a tree search for about 100 of the most common
opening positions, then saves the cache file.
The maximum number of lines in the cache can be configured per file/cache size. Defaults
are up to 1000 lines.
Alternatively, one can also fill the cache with the contents of a base or a game by selecting
File/Fill Cache with Base and File/Fill Cache with Game, respectively. The cache will be
filled with the contents of these, including all variations. This is most useful if one has one
or more repertoire bases that can serve as input. (See also about this type of bases.)
Tree renewal can be dramatically improved if the database is sorted by ECO code and
then compacted (see maintenance window). Once I know
achieve this (the whole process may take several hours), activate the Quick Mode option.
The tree window update will be 20 times faster on average at the cost of some
inaccuracies (games not in the current filter will not be taken into account). By turning off
the Quick Mode option, you will see the difference in the number of games when all
transpositions are taken into account. If you want to preview statistics, get an accurate
tree, use Fast and Slow Mode option
Note that a tree cache (.stc) file is completely redundant; you can delete it without
affecting the database, and in fact Scid deletes it whenever an action occurs that could
make it out of date, for example adding or replacing a game, or sorting the database.

GRAPHIC WINDOWS
Scid has a series of windows that display information graphically. They are explained
below.

Relative and absolute filter viewports

The Relative Filter Chart window shows trends by date or by Elo rating for games in the
current filter, compared to the entire database. For example, it is useful when the tree is
open as a tool to show how the current opening position has changed in popularity over
recent years or decades, or if it is especially popular among higher-rated players, such as
grandmasters. Each point on the graph represents the number of games in the filter per
1000 games in the entire database, for a particular date or Elo rating range.
The second filter graph window is the absolute filter graph window. This graph shows the
absolute number of games in the filter based on the selected criteria. It is possible to
select the criteria: Decade, Year, Classification and Movements.
The small button near the Close button opens the dialog box for setting up the chart. You
can select the range (from, to) and interval size for the x-axes. The "decade" criteria
cannot be set, use Year instead. If "Estimate" was selected, the missing grade will be
estimated as described below. In other cases, no estimation is made and missing scores
are counted as zero. This coincides with the Min. Elo evaluation in the statistical window.
Use "Refresh" to start a new evaluation with the actual value without closing the dialog.
Please note: the calculation may take some time in large ranges and small intervals, in
addition, the readability decreases.
When plotting the filter by rating graph, Scid uses the average rating (average) for each
game. Guessing estimates (such as those in the spelling file) are not used. If a player in a
game has a rating, but the opponent does not, the opponent is presumed to have the
same up to a limit of 2200. For example, if a player has a rating of 2500 and the opponent
does not have a rating, the average rating is (2500 + 2200) / 2 = 2350.

Graphical sorting window

The rating graph window displays the rating history of one player or both players in the
current game. You can produce the graph for a single player by pressing the graph ranking
button in the player information window, or produce it for both players of the current
game by selecting the ranking graph in the [Tools] menu.

Score Graph Window

The Score Graph window displays the numerical evaluations (scores) stored in the
comments of the current game as a graph. You can left-click anywhere on the score chart
to go to the corresponding position in the game.

Two types of evaluation comments are recognized: those produced by the Scid analysis
window (which have the format
1.e4 {"+0.25..."}
and are always scores from White's perspective) and those produced by the Crafty
annotate command (which have the format
1.e4 ({9: +0.25}…)
and they are also scores from White's perspective).

In the event that scores are not given from the targets' perspective, the perspective to
use can be chosen from the options menu to correct this. ### --- Checking both??? --- ###
Graphic tree window
The Tree Graph window is available from the tree window. Shows the performance of the
most popular moves from the current position. More information is available on the Tree
help page.

TABLE BASES
A table base is a file that contains the perfect score information on all positions of a
particular material configuration, such as King and Rook versus King and Pawn. Table
bases for all material situations have been generated up to five men (including Kings), and
some simple 6-man table bases are also available.
Scid can use Nalimov format table bases that many modern chess engines use. These
often end with the file [Link] [Link]. All Nalimov 3, 4 and 5 man table bases
can be used in Scid.

Using table bases in Scid

To use table base files in Scid, simply configure your directories by selecting Table Base
Directory... from the [Options] menu. You can select up to 4 directories where your table
base files are stored. You can press a ... button to the right of an entry to choose a file, to
specify that the directory of that file should be used.
When a position found in a tablebase file is reached, the game information area (below
the chessboard) will display tablebase information. You can configure the amount of
information displayed by right-clicking in that area or by selecting game information from
the [Options] menu. Selecting the "result and best moves" option provides the most
useful information, but is often much slower than the "result only" option.

The Tablebase window

You can get even more tablebase information about the current position by opening the
Tablebase window ( [Windows] menu, shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + =). This window shows the
result with perfect play of all legal moves from the current position.
The window has two main parts. The summary box (on the left) shows the tablebases that
Scid found on your computer and a summary for each tablebase. The results frame (on the
right) shows optimal results for all moves from the current position shown in the main
window.

The summary table

The top of the summary box allows you to select a particular database. The ones you have
available are shown in blue and the unavailable table bases are shown in grey, but you can
select any table base. The bottom of the summary box displays summary information for
the selected database. (Not all tablebases have a summary registered in Scid yet.)
The summary includes frequency (how many games per million a position reaches with
this material, calculated from a database of over 600,000 master level games), a longer
partner for each side, and the number of mutuals (or " reciprocal") zugzwangs. A mutual
zugzwang is a position where the white move draws and the black move loses, or where
the white move loses and the black move draws, or where the loser moves.
For some table bases with mutual zugzwang, the summary also includes a list of all or a
selection of zugzwang positions. A complete list for each table base is not feasible since
some table bases have thousands of mutual zugzwangs.
You can set a random position from the selected table base by pressing the Random
button.

The results framework

The results frame is updated every time the chessboard in the main window changes. The
first line shows how many moves you win (+), draw (=), lose (-) or have an unknown
outcome (?). The rest of the framework provides a more detailed list of results, sorting
them from the shortest to the longest pairs, then plots, then from the longest to the
shortest losses. All distances are checkmate.
The results board
In a table base position, it is often useful what the table base results would be if all the
pieces in the current position were in their current squares, but one particular piece was
moved somewhere else. For example, you may want to determine how close a king must
be to a passed pawn to win or draw a particular position. In endgame books, this
information is often called the winning zone or the drawing zone of a piece in a position.
You can find this information in Scid by pressing the button with a picture of a chessboard
to display the results board in the table database window. When you press the left mouse
button on any piece on this board, a symbol is drawn on each empty square showing what
the result of the base of the board would be (with the same side to move as the current
position of the main window) whether the selected piece was in that position. square.
There are five different symbols that a square can have: a blank # means wins on White; a
black # means black wins; a blue = means the position is drawn; a red X means the
position is illegal (because the kings are adjacent or the moving side is the one in control);
and a red? means that the result is unknown because the necessary table base file is not
available.

Getting files from Tablebase

See the related links section for help finding base table files on the Internet.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

MARKERS
Scid allows you to bookmark important games for easy future reference. The bookmarks
menu is available from the [File] menu, the toolbar, or the Ctrl + B shortcut key.
When you select a bookmarked game in the Bookmarks menu, Scid will open its database
if necessary, search for that game, and move to the game position where it was
bookmarked.
Only games in a Scid format database (not a PGN file or the clipbase) can be marked as
favorites.
If the database for a marked game is tidy or compact, the scoreboard details may become
obsolete. When that happens, Scid will search the database for the best matching game
(by comparing player names, site, etc.) when the bookmark is selected, so the
bookmarked game should still be loaded. However, if the details of the bookmarked game
change, a different game may better match the bookmark details and be loaded instead.
Therefore, it is a good idea to re-flag a game if you edit its players, site, result, round or
year.
Editing bookmarks
With the bookmark editor, you can change the menu text displayed for each bookmarked
game and add folders to sort bookmarks.

Tips
You can use bookmarks to quickly access databases you use often by bookmarking a game
from each database. Another good use of bookmarks is to add important games that you
find when studying a particular chess opening.
The bookmarks menu contains an entry to control the display of bookmark folders: they
can be displayed as submenus (useful when there are many bookmarks) or as a single list.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

When you start Scid from a shell or console, there are command line options that you can
specify. Scid format databases (with or without a file suffix such as ".si3") and PGN files to
be opened can be provided, for example:
scid mybase [Link]
will start Scid and open the Scid database called mybase and the PGN file called
[Link].
There are also optional arguments to control which files Scid should look for and use when
it starts. You can disable the use of table bases with the -xtb (or -xt) option, avoid loading
the ECO opening classification file with -xeco or -xe, and avoid loading the spelling file with
-xspell or -xs. Additionally, the -fast or -f option does all three, so scid -f is equivalent to
scid -xeco -xspell -xtb.
Additionally, a filter file (.sso) can be used on the command line.
scid mybase myfilter
It will open mybase and immediately run myfilter against it to select a set of games. This
can, for example. be used to select a list of unfinished games in a pgn file.

DATABASE COMPACTION
Database compaction is a specific type of maintenance that keeps a database as small and
efficient as possible. Compacting a database means removing any unused space in its files.
There are two types: name file and game file compaction.

Compaction file name

Over time, a database may begin to contain a number of player names, events, sites, or
rounds that are no longer used in any game. This will often happen after you make spelling
corrections to names. Unused names waste space in the names file and can slow down
name lookups. Name file compaction removes all names that are not used in any game.

File Compaction Game

Every time a game is replaced or deleted, it leaves wasted space in the game file (the
largest of the three files in a Scid database). Compacting game files eliminates all wasted
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
space, leaving no deleted games in the database. Please note that this operation is
irreversible: after compaction, deleted games are gone forever!
Game file compaction is also recommended after sorting a database, to keep the order of
the game file consistent with the sorted index file.

DATABASE MAINTENANCE
Scid provides a number of tools for maintaining databases, available from Scid's File menu.
Database compaction and sorting functions are explained on separate help pages.

Maintenance window
Most Scid database maintenance can be done from the Maintenance window, which can
be opened from the [File: Maintenance] or [Windows] menus or the Ctrl + M shortcut key.
You can use this window to maintain game brands, spell check names, compact, or sort a
database. Note that any operation that is not available for the current database (for
example, because it may be read-only or a PGN file) will be grayed out.

Eliminating twin games

The [File:Maintenance] menu has a [Delete Game Twins...] command to detect additional
copies (twins) of games in the database. This command finds all pairs of games that are
twins and, for each pair, marks the shortest game removed, leaving the longest game
unrecovered. Two games are considered twins if their players (and any other labels you
may specify) match exactly.
If you specify the "same moves" option, each pair of games must have the same actual
moves until the duration of the shorter game (or until the 60th move, whichever comes
first) to be twins.
Once you've eliminated the twins, it's a good idea to verify that each deleted game is
actually a copy of another game. You can do this easily if you selected the “Set filter for all
deleted games” option in the delete twins dialog. The filter will now contain all deleted
games. You can navigate through them (using the p and n keys) with the twin checker
window (available from the maintenance menu or the shortcut key Ctrl + Shift + T) to
verify that each game is removed because it is actually a twin from another game.

Editing player, event, site and round names.

OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
You may find misspelled names in your databases and want to correct them. You can do
this in Scid with the name editor window (shortcut key: Control + Shift + N), available in
the [File: Maintenance] submenu.
Each unique name is only stored once in the name file, so changing a name actually
changes all occurrences.

Spell correction of names

Scid comes with a spell check file called [Link], for correcting player, event, site and
round names. Scid will try to load the spellcheck file every time it starts; If it doesn't load,
you can load it from the [Options] menu.
Once the spell check file has been uploaded, you can use it in a Scid database using the
spell check commands in the [File: Maintenance] menu, or from the maintenance window.
When you spell check a database, Scid produces a list of corrections that you can edit
before making corrections, so you can delete corrections you don't want to make.
Spell checking is especially useful for standardizing a database, so all instances of a
particular player are spelled the same. For example, with the standard spell check file, the
names "Kramnik, V", "Vladimir Kramnik", and "V. Kramnik" would be corrected to
"Kramnik, Vladimir."
The spellcheck file has an additional use: when loaded, your player data is used to
enhance the player information window and crosstab window: you will see the main FIDE
title (gm = International Master, im = International Master, etc.) and country information
for any player who is listed in the spell check file. Over 6,500 strong players from the past
and present are listed in the [Link] file that comes with Scid.

Add Elo ratings to games

The "Add Elo Ratings..." button in the Maintenance window causes Scid to search the
current database for games where a player does not have a rating, but the spellcheck file
has an Elo rating for that player on the game date. Scid will automatically add all those
ratings. This is very useful for a master level game database that has few ratings.
The spell check file "[Link]" that comes with Scid does not contain the Elo rating
information needed for this feature, but a larger version of it called "[Link]" is
available on the Scid website.

The cleaner
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Scid Cleaner (available in the Maintenance window) is a tool for performing a series of
maintenance tasks on a database in a single action. You can choose which tasks you want
to perform and Scid will perform them on the current database without requiring user
interaction. This is especially useful for maintaining large databases.

Autoload game database settings

The autoload game for a database is the game that is automatically loaded every time that
database is opened. To change the autoload set of a database, use the "Autoload set
number..." button. If you always want the last game in a database to be opened
(regardless of the actual number of games in the database), simply set it to a very high
number, such as 9999999.
Repair a base
In the rare cases where a Scid database is corrupted, an attempt could be made to repair
it using FileBase/Maintenance/Repair. For this to work, the base in question must not be
opened (which is not possible in most cases). Scid will make every effort to recover the
database to a consistent and usable state.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

CLASSIFICATION OF ECO OPENINGS

Scid can classify chess games according to the ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings)
classification of chess openings. A standard ECO code consists of a letter (A... E) followed
by two digits, so there are 500 different standard ECO codes.

Scid extensions to the ECO system.

The ECO system is very limited and is not sufficient for modern games: some of the 500
codes are almost never seen, while others are seen very often. To improve this situation,
Scid allows an optional extension to the basic ECO codes: each code can be extended by
one letter (a. z), with an additional extension (another digit, 1.4) that is possible but not
used in the Scid ECO standard file yet. Therefore, an extended ECO Scid code looks like
"A41e" or "E99b2". Many of the most common ECO codes found in modern master level
games have extensions defined in the Scid ECO file.

The ECO browser window

The ECO Navigator window shows you the positions used to classify each ECO code, and
the frequency and performance of ECO codes in the current database.
The top panel shows the frequency of each ECO code in the current database. The bars on
the chart have three sections: the lowest (lightest color) is the number of white wins, the
middle is the number of draws, and the highest (darker) is the number of black wins. This
allows you to see at a glance the characteristics of an opening: for example, whether
white is scoring very well or whether draws are very common.
To go to a deeper ECO level, left-click on a bar in the graph (or type the letter or digit it
corresponds to). To return to the top level, right-click anywhere on the chart or press the
left arrow key (or delete or backspace).
The bottom panel shows the positions that comprise a particular ECO code, according to
the ECO file you have uploaded.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Loading the Scid ECO file
The ECO file that comes with Scid is called [Link], and Scid tries to load it when it starts.
If Scid cannot find it, you will need to do the following to enable ECO classification:
(a) In Scid, use the menu command [Options: Load ECO File] and select the [Link] file.
(b) Save options (from the [Options] menu).
After doing this, the ECO file will be loaded every time you start Scid.

ECO code system

The basic structure of the ECO system is:

To 1. d4 Nf6 2 ...; 1. d4...; 1.c4; 1. several

A0 1. various (A02-A03 1. f4: Bird's opening, A04-A09 1. Nf3: Reti, the king's Indian
attack)
A1 1.c4...: English
A2 1.c4 e5: King's English
A3 1.c4 c5: English, symmetrical
A4 1. d4...: Queen's Pawn
A5 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4..: Defense of India
A6 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3. d5 e6: Modern Benoni
A7 A6 + 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Nf3
A8 1. d4 f5: Dutch defense
A9 1. d4 f5 2.c4 e6: Dutch defense

B 1. e4 c5; 1. e4 c6; 1. e4 d6; 1. e4 various

B0 1. e4 ... (B02-B05 1. e4 Nf6: Alekhine Defense; B07-B09 1. e4 d6: Pirc)
B1 1. e4 c6: Caro-Kann
B2 1. e4 c5: Sicilian defense
B3 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6: Sicilian
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
B4 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6: Sicilian
B5 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6: Sicilian
B6 B5 + 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6
B7 B5 + 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6: Sicilian Dragon
B8 B5 + 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6: Sicilian Scheveningen
B9 B5 + 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6: Sicilian Najdorf

C 1. e4 e5; 1. e4 e6
C0 1. e4 e6: French defense
C1 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3: French, classical/classic
C2 1. e4 e5: Open play
C3 1. e4 e5 2. f4: King's Gambit
C4 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3: Open game
C5 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4: Italian; two gentlemen
C6 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5: Spanish (Ruy López)
C7 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4: Spanish
C8 C7 + 4... Nf6 [Link]: Spanish, closed and open (C80-C83 [Link] Nxe4: Spanish, open
system; C84-C89 [Link] Be7: Spanish, closed system)
C9 C8 + 5... Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6: Spanish, closed

D 1. d4 d5; 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 with 3...d5

D0 1. d4 d5: Queen's Pawn
D1 1. d4 d5 2.c4 c6: Slavic defense
D2 1. d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4: Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA)
D3 1. d4 d5 2.c4 e6: Queen's Gambit rejected (QGD)
D4 D3 + 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5/c6: Semi-Tarrasch; Semi-Slavic
D5 D3 + 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5: Classic QGD
D6 D5 + 4... Be7 5. e3 OO 6. Nf3 Nbd7: Orthodox QGD
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
D7 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 with 3...d5: Grunfeld
D8 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5: Grunfeld
D9 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3: Grunfeld

E 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6; 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6

E0 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6: Catalan, etc.
E1 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3. Nf3 (b6): Queen's Indian, etc.
E2 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3. Nc3 (Bb4): Nimzoindio, etc.
E3 E2 + 4. Bg5 or 4. Qc2: Nimzoindian
E4 E2 + 4. e3: Nimzoindio, Rubinstein
E5 E4 + 4... OO 5. Nf3: Nimzo-Indian, main line
E6 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6: king's Indian
E7 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4: king's indian
E8 E7 + 4...d6 5. f3: Kings Indian, Samisch
E9 E7 + 4...d6 5. Nf3: Kings Indian, main lines
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

EPD FILES
An EPD (extended position description) file is a collection of positions, where each position
has some associated text. Like PGN, it is a common standard for chess information.
An EPD file has a number of defined opcodes (fields) that are stored separated by
semicolons (;) in the file, but are displayed on separate lines in a Scid EPD window for easy
editing. A semicolon within an EPD field is stored as "\s" by Scid to distinguish it from an
end-of-field marker. Each position and its associated opcodes are stored on a single line in
the EPD file.
EPD standard op codes include:
acd analysis account: searched depth.
Acn Analysis count: number of nodes searched.
ACS analysis counts: search time in seconds.
bm Best Moves: Move(s) judged best for some reason.
Centipawn Evaluation: Evaluation in hundredths of a pawn from the perspective of the
moving side: Note that this differs from the Analysis window which shows evaluations in
pawns from White's perspective.
Comment of cX (where X is a digit, 0-9).
Eco ECO system opening code.
Unique ID for this position.
New opening code for the New In Chess system.
pm Intended move: the first move of the PV.
Predicted variation pv: the best game line.
EPD files have several uses: Scid uses an EPD file to classify games according to the Chess
Encyclopedia (ECO) Opening System, and you can create an EPD file for your opening
repertoire, adding comments to the positions he normally reaches in games.
You can create a new EPD file or open an existing one, from the [New] and [Open]
commands of the [File] menu. At most four EPD files can be opened at any time.

EPD windows
For each EPD file opened, you will see a window displaying the text for the current
position. You don't have to press the Store button to store changes you make to a
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
position's text; The text will be stored every time you move to a different position in the
game.
Browsing the EPD files
To navigate through positions in an EPD file, use the [Next Position] and [Previous
Position] commands from the [Tools] menu of the EPD window, or use the shortcut keys
Ctrl + Down Arrow and Ctrl + Up Arrow . These commands move to the next/previous
position in the file, clear the current game, and set its starting position.
Noting
EPD files can be automatically annotated by selecting Tools / Annotate Position. The next
dialog asks for the time to use for the analysis, then the engine list opens to select an
engine to use. Note If an analysis window is already opened, the analysis is performed
using this engine without prompting the user beforehand. The engine is then started and
the result is added to the EPD. The EPD labels used are: acd, acn, ce and pv.
Deleting EPD fields
EPD files you find on the Internet may contain fields that you are not interested in and can
waste a lot of file space. For example, a computer evaluations EPD file may have the ce,
acd, acn, pm, pv, and id fields, but you may only need the ce and pv fields.
You can delete an EPD opcode from all positions in the EPD file using the [Delete EPD
Field] from the [Tools] menu of the EPD window.
The EPD window status bar
The status bar of each EPD window displays:
- the status of the file (- means unchanged, XX means changed, and %% means read-
only);
- the file name;
- the number of positions in the file;
- legal moves from the current position reach another position in this EPD file.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

EXPORTING GAMES
You can use the commands in the [Tools] menu to export the current game or all games in
the current filter to a text file.
There are four text file formats available: PGN (Portable Game Notation), HTML (for web
pages), HTML and JavaScript (for interactive web pages), and LaTeX (a popular typesetting
system).
When exporting, you can choose to create a new file or add the games to an existing file
of games exported by Scid.

Diagrams
When exporting in HTML or LaTeX format, Scid will automatically add a diagram whenever
a "D" message or comment starting with the "#" character appears in the game.

Null movements in PGN Export

Scid allows null (empty) moves to be stored in games, as they can be useful when scoring
games with variations. However, the PGN standard has no concept of null motion. So if
you export Scid games with null moves to a PGN file, other PGN reader software will not
be able to read the null moves.
To resolve this issue, Scid provides an additional option, Convert Null Moves to
Comments, when exporting games in PGN format. If you want to create a PGN file that
other software can use, activate this option and variations containing null moves will be
converted to comments. However, if you want to create a PGN file that can be imported
back into Scid later with null moves preserved, leave the option disabled.

HTML export
Scid can export games to an HTML file. For the diagrams to appear, you will need the
diagram images (distributed with Scid in the "bitmaps/" directory) to be in a bitmaps/
subdirectory under the directory where the HTML file is located.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
HTML with JavaScript Export
While exporting HTML generates a static file that can contain static board diagrams, this
format offers dynamic HTML, allowing you to move through the game interactively with
the mouse.
This format consists of several files that must be stored in a specific structure. Therefore,
it is advisable to first generate an empty folder that will contain these files. The name of
the main file can be specified and will get the extension html (e.g. [Link]). This file
must be loaded by the web browser. The other files are required to exist exactly in the
position where the export filter places them. However, the entire folder can easily be
uploaded to some web server.

LaTeX Export
Scid can export games to a LaTeX file. The games are printed in two columns to one page
and the moves are made in algebraic notation with the appropriate translation of the NAG
symbols. Diagrams are added whenever a comment from D is found.
See the Using LaTeX with Scid help page for more information.

GAME FLAGS
A flag is an indicator of some chess feature that can be enabled or disabled for each game
in the database. There are 13 user-configurable flags that you can set directly for each
game. Of these, only the Delete flag has special meaning: games with the Delete flag
enabled are marked for deletion and will be deleted when the database is compacted.
The other 12 user-configurable flags and their symbols are:
White opening (W)
Black opening (B)
Middlegame (M)
End of game (E)
New (n)
Pawn Structure (P)
Tactics (t)
Queenside Game (Q)
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
Kingside Game (K)
Brilliance (!)
Mistake (?)
User defined (U)
Since Scid 4.0, there are 6 additional custom flags available for individual use. These flags
are specific to each base and their textual description can be configured through the
maintenance window. In the game list, game information area, etc., they appear as
numbers (1).. (6). For header searches they behave exactly like the predefined flags above.
A flag can be set for the current game, all filter games, or all database games using the
maintenance window.
You can use a header search to find all games in a database that have a particular flag
enabled or disabled, or use flags as part of more complex searches.
Since all user-configurable flags (except the Delete flag) are irrelevant to Scid, you can use
them for any purpose that suits your needs. For example, you can use the Kingside flag (K)
for kingside pawn storms, or kingside heavy piece attacks, or even for all-pawn kingside
endgames. Depending on the use, however, a custom flag might be more suitable.
Note that judicious handling of flags can speed up searches significantly.
The following Scid functions set or require flags:
Opening trainer: can evaluate flags (B) and (W)
Find the best move: evaluate the flag (T)
Find Tactical Exercise: Set the Flag (T)
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

USING LATEX WITH SCID

Scid can save games and open reports to LaTeX format files. LaTeX is an extension of TeX,
a popular typesetting system.
To compose the LaTeX files produced by Scid, you must have LaTeX (of course) and have
the "chess12" chess source package installed. This font package is generally not part of
standard LaTeX installations, so even if you have LaTeX, you may not have the chess font.
For information on how to download and install the LaTeX chess source, visit the Using
LaTeX with Scid page on the Scid website.

OPTIONS AND PREFERENCES

Many Scid options and preferences (such as board size, colors, fonts, and default settings)
can be adjusted from the [Options] menu. All of these (and more, such as the last
directory you loaded a database from and the size of some windows) are saved in an
options file when you select Save Options from the Options menu. The options file is
loaded every time you start Scid.
If you are using Windows, the options file is [Link] in the directory where the Scid
program's [Link] file is located. For users of Unix operating systems (such as Solaris or
Linux) the file is ~/. scid/scidrc.
Setting your player names
There may be a player name (or multiple names) for whom, when a game is loaded, you
would like the chess board in the main window to be displayed from that player's
perspective. You can set up a list of such names using My Player Names... from the
[Options/Chessboard] menu. In the dialog box that appears, enter a player's name on
each line. Wildcard characters ("?") can be used. for exactly one character and "*" for a
sequence of zero or more characters).
Font Settings
Scid has three basic fonts that it uses in most of its windows, and you can customize all of
them. They are called regular, small and fixed.
The fixed font must be a fixed width (non-proportional) font. It is used for the tree and
cross windows.
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

ORDER A DATABASE
The sort function sorts all games in a database. You can select a series of sorting criteria.
When two games are equal according to the first criterion, they are ordered using the
second criterion, and so on.

Classification criteria
The available classification criteria are:

Date (oldest games first)

Year (same as date, but using only the year)
Name of the event
Name of the site
Country (last 3 letters of site name)
round name
white name
Ranking (average of black and white grades, highest first)
black name
Result (white wins, then draws, then black wins)
Length (number of completed moves in the game)
ECO (the chess opening code encyclopedia)
Sort results
When you sort a Scid database that is not read-only, the sort results are saved so that the
order of games in the database changes permanently. If you want the sort results to be
temporary, first make the database read-only with the menu command File: Read Only.
When you sort a database that is read-only or is actually a PGN file, the sort results cannot
be saved, so the order of the games will be lost when the file is closed.

Note that sorting a database resets the search filter to contain all games.
Important note on database classification:
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
When a database is sorted, the index file is modified, but the game file is not modified.
This means that sorting a database will leave the records in the game file in a random
order relative to the index file. This can really slow down tree, position and
material/pattern searches, so you should reorder the game file by compacting it after
sorting the database to maintain good search performance.
Please note that only a database sorted by ECO codes can use the quick tree search
modes. However, this also requires compacting the database after the classification
procedure.

NAG STANDARD VALUES

The standard NAG (numeric annotation symbol) values defined in the PGN standard are:
1 good move:!
2 poor move:?
3 Excellent play:!!
4 error: ??
5 interesting move:!?
6 dubious move:?!
7 Forced movement: forced.
8 singular movement; there are no reasonable alternatives: □
9 Worst Move: The Worst
10 Drawish position: =
11 Equal opportunities, calm position: =, calm
12 equal opportunities, active position: ↹
13 Unclear position: ~
14 White has a slight advantage: + =
15 Black has a slight advantage: = +
16 White has a moderate advantage: +/-
17 Black has a moderate advantage: - / +
18 White has a decisive advantage: + -
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
19 Black has a decisive advantage: - +
20 White has an overwhelming advantage: + -
21 Black has an overwhelming advantage: - +
22 white is in zugzwang: ⊙
23 Black is in zugzwang:
24 White has a slight space advantage: ◯
25 Black has a slight space advantage: ◯
26 White has a moderate space advantage:
27 Black has a moderate space advantage:
28 White has a decisive advantage in space: ◯◯◯
29 Black has a decisive space advantage:
30 White has a slight time advantage (development):
31 Black has a slight time (development) advantage:
32 White has a moderate time (development) advantage: ↻↻
33 Black has a moderate time (development) advantage: ↺↺
34 White has a decisive time (development) advantage:
35 Black has a decisive time (development) advantage:
36 Blanca has the initiative: ↑
37 Black has the initiative: ↓
38 Blanca has a lasting initiative:
39 Negro has a lasting initiative:
40 White has the attack: →
41 Black has the attack: ←
42 Target does not have sufficient compensation for the material deficit: &/-
43 Black does not have sufficient compensation for the material deficit: & / +
44 White has sufficient compensation for the material deficit: = / &
45 Black has sufficient compensation for the material deficit: = / &
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
46 White has more than adequate compensation for the material deficit: + / &
47 Black has more than adequate compensation for the material deficit: - / &
48 White has a slight central control advantage:
49 Black has a slight central control advantage:
50 White has a moderate central control advantage: ⊞⊞
51 Black has a moderate central control advantage:
52 White has a decisive center control advantage: ⊞⊞⊞
53 Black has a decisive center control advantage:
54 White has a slight kingside control advantage:
55 Black has a slight kingside control advantage:
56 White has a moderate kingside control advantage:
57 Black has a moderate kingside control advantage:
58 White has a decisive kingside control advantage:
59 Black has a decisive kingside control advantage:
60 White has a slight queenside control advantage:
61 Black has a slight queenside control advantage:
62 White has a moderate queenside control advantage:
63 Black has a moderate queenside control advantage:
64 White has a decisive advantage in controlling the queenside:
65 Black has a decisive advantage in controlling the queenside: ⋘
66 White has a vulnerable first rank:
67 Black has a vulnerable first rank:
68 White has a well-protected first rank:
69 Black has a well-protected first rank:
70 Blanca has a poorly protected king:
71 Black has a poorly protected king:
72 White has a well-protected king:
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
73 Black has a well-protected king:
74 White has a poorly placed king:
75 Black has a poorly placed king:
76 Blanca has a well-placed king:
77 Black has a well-placed king:
78 White has a very weak pawn structure:
79 Black has a very weak pawn structure:
80 White has a moderately weak pawn structure:
81 Black has a moderately weak pawn structure:
82 White has a moderately strong pawn structure:
83 Black has a moderately strong pawn structure:
84 White has a very strong pawn structure:
Black 85 has a very strong pawn structure:
86 Blanca has a bad position as a knight:
87 Black has bad knight placement:
88 Blanca has a good knight position:
89 Black has good knight placement:
90 white has bad bishop placement:
91 Black has bad bishop placement:
92 Blanca has a good position as a bishop: ↗
93 Negro has a good bishop placement: ↖
94 White has poor rook placement:
95 Black has poor rook placement:
96 White has good rook placement: ⇈
97 Black has good rook placement: ⇊
98 Blanca has poor queen placement:
99 Black has bad queen placement:
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
100 White has good queen placement:
101 Black has good queen placement:
102 Blanca has poor coordination of pieces:
103 Black has little coordination of pieces:
104 Blanca has good coordination of pieces:
105 Black has good coordination of parts:
106 Blanca has played the opening very poorly:
107 Black has played the opening very badly:
108 Blanca has played the opening poorly:
109 Black has played the opening wrong:
110 Blanca has played the opening well:
111 Black has played the opening well:
112 Blanca has played the opening very well:
113 Black has played the opening very well:
114 White has played the middlegame very badly:
115 Black has played the middlegame very badly:
116 White has played the middlegame badly:
117 Black has played the middlegame badly:
118 White has played the middle game well:
119 Black has played the middlegame well:
120 White has played the middle game very well:
121 Black has played the middle game very well:
122 Blanca has played the ending very badly:
123 Black has played the ending very badly:
124 Blanca has played the ending badly:
125 Black has played the ending wrong:
126 Blanca has played the ending well:
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
127 Black has played the ending well:
128 Blanca has played the ending very well:
129 Black has played the ending very well:
130 white has slight counterplay: ⇄
131 Black has slight counterplay: ⇆
132 White has moderate counterplay: ⇄⇄
133 Black has moderate counterplay: ⇆⇆
134 White has decisive counterplay: ⇄⇄⇄
135 Black has decisive counterplay: ⇆⇆⇆
136 White has moderate time control pressure:
137 Black has moderate time control pressure:
138 White has a severe time control pressure:
139 Black has severe weather control pressure: ⊖⊖

Other proposed NAG values for Chess Informant publishing symbols include:

140 With the idea...: △

141 Aimed Against...:
142 Best move: ⌓
143 Worst move:
144 Equivalent movement: R
145 Editor's Note: RR
146 New: N
147 Weak point: ×
148 End of game: ⊥
Line 149:
Diagonal 150: ⇗
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
151 White has a pair of bishops:
152 Black has a couple of bishops:
153 bishops of opposite color: ◨
154 bishops of the same color: ⊶

Other suggested values are:

190 Etc.: ǁ

191 pawns doubled: ⡁

192 isolated pawn: ⚯

193 connected pawns: ⚮

194 hanging pawns:
195 backwards pawn:

The symbols defined by Scid for its own use are:

Diagram 201: D or #
210 see:-
211 companion: #

212 passed pawn: ⚨

213 more pawns:
214 with: ⌊
215 without: ⌋
OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION

SCID FILE FORMATS

Scid databases consist of three essential files: an index file, a name file, and a game file.
They all have a three-letter suffix starting with "s": ".si3" for index files, ".sn3" for name
files, and ".sg3" for game files.
The index file (.si3)
This file contains a description of the database and a small fixed-size entry for each game.
The current size is 41 bytes per game. Of this, around 28 bytes is essential information
such as result, date, player/event/site name ID numbers (real names are in the Name file),
etc.
The remaining 13 bytes contain redundant but useful information about the game that is
used to speed up position, material, and pattern searches. See the Quick Searches section
below for more information.
The file name (.sn3)
This file contains all player, event, site and round names used in the database. Each name
is stored only once, even if it appears in many games. The name file is usually the smallest
of the three essential files in a database.
The game file (.sg3)
This file contains the actual moves, variations and comments for each game. The move
encoding format is very compact: most moves take only one byte of storage.
When a game is replaced, its new version is saved at the end of the game file, so wasted
space can add up over time. You can restore a database to its minimum size by
compacting it.
Other Scid Files
An EPD file (suffix: ".epd") contains several chess positions, each with a text comment. The
EPD file format is described in the PGN standard.
An email file (suffix: ".sem") for a database stores the details of opponents to whom you
send email messages.
A SearchOptions file (suffix: ".sso") contains the Scid header or material/pattern search
settings.

Quick searches in Scid

OTHER UTILITIES AND INFORMATION
As mentioned above, the index file stores redundant but useful information about each
game to speed up searching for positions or materials.
For example, the material of the final position is stored. If you're looking for rook and
pawn endings, all games that end with a queen, bishop, or knight on the board (and don't
have pawn promotions) will be quickly skipped.
Another useful information that is stored is the order in which pawns leave their squares
(by moving or capturing them). This is used to speed up exact position or tree searches,
especially for opening positions. For example, when looking for the starting position of the
French defense (1. e4 e6), every game starting with 1. e4 c5, or 1. d4 etc. will be skipped,
but games starting with 1. e4 e5 still needs to be searched.