How to use the chess engine

So far, here's what I do. I play a game, go through the review.

At the review, it says "you played this, however the best move is this".

Let's say I am white. I play a move. The analysis says I should have played this instead.

So I follow that path. However, it says "Black will then make this move next". But I disagree, I feel like Black would make some other move.

How do I play that out, with the option of coming back to the original game once I have explored a branch? Where in the UI is that option?

Use analysis instead of game review. Every time a move is made lines appear which are considered the best moves.. (as many as you have it set to) Then think of your move but before moving it, look to see what the lines says. You can hover over the line and visually see the moves on the board without any changes to the board as you follow the line (hovering). At any time you can enter a move and see the engines reply. From there you can go back.

To answer your question, you do have a “finish vs computer” function, but regardless, don’t take the engine assessment as gospel.

Its better and foremost to get a human perspective before an in-depth engine analysis. To be honest, under 1500, I’m just counting up blunders, mistakes, inaccuracies and misses.

With that said, I do understand your perspective which is why I will say it’s important to understand your plans.

As an example, I play system openings or see a plan that the engine may call “suboptimal” but later, the engine catches up to speed and recognizes the evaluation bar.

Yes, yes, yes!

I bet that the vast majority of players (including the OP) don't even know that there is Analysis mode, where you can try any move in any position, and see the engine lines and evaluations in all positions. You can try anything, go back and forth, as you wish.

Honestly, I am equally astonished by two things: how completely useless Game Review is, and the fact that people use it anyway.

Because it counts the blunders, mistakes, inaccuracies and misses for me….

And I feel good when it says I play to a high performance rating!

Thanks for the tips

Review, Analysis... they both work together.

From a human perspective the analysis can have a dubious value. If you let the analysis sit for a long time, even after the first move, it bounces around for what the "best" line is. And realistically if one wins/loses a game it almost certainly wasn't solely because of a move a computer rated as -0.1 pawn below what it deemed the best move, or one that took 20+ depth for stockfish to determine resulted in a meaningful difference.

Thats where review shines - it shows you the moments that did greatly influence the game (or could have.) From there you can see where the evaluation changes significantly to look at the lines from that position back in analysis and then observe characteristics - Like how well do the 2nd and 3rd lines perform? Is the optimal move something you could reasonably expect a human to actually play? etc.

A baffling statement. This is exactly the other way around. These things are super easy to see in Analysis and almost impossible to see in Game Review.

Thank you, will learn to use the analysis.

Any tips on how to understand the reviews? For a complete beginner, there's way too many numbers floating around