Chess Annotation Symbols

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nwine888

What do all the chess annotation symbols mean? Wikipedia has a list of commonly used ones that it appears that Chess.com uses (??,?,?!,!?,!, and !!), but it doesn't have the green star listed in that hierarchy. Where does that fit in that list? I've heard it means "best move", but does that mean there could still be a brilliant move that is better? How does it work?

GMegasDoux

?? Terrible move, ? Bad move, ?! Bad move but every response bar one is worse for the other player, !? Causes lots of complications that is very sharp, with best play you get an advantage but both players could blunder easily. ! Great Move One that clearly leeds to a great advantage and is far superior to other moves, even if they were good or ok moves !! Brilliant move, like a great move but the other options were game losing bad so you had to find this.

chesslover0003

The chess annotation symbols were originally devised by the popular chess periodical Chess Informant. It was published in many languages and the symbols were used to transcend language to describe move quality.

"Best Move" means it's the top move calculated by a chess engine.

LordHunkyhair3

I've noticed that the best move is usually equal to great

Martin_Stahl
nwine888 wrote:

What do all the chess annotation symbols mean? Wikipedia has a list of commonly used ones that it appears that Chess.com uses (??,?,?!,!?,!, and !!), but it doesn't have the green star listed in that hierarchy. Where does that fit in that list? I've heard it means "best move", but does that mean there could still be a brilliant move that is better? How does it work?

Here's how they are defined for the site:

https://support.chess.com/article/2965-how-are-moves-classified-what-is-a-blunder-or-brilliant-and-etc

Ziryab
chesslover0003 wrote:

The chess annotation symbols were originally devised by the popular chess periodical Chess Informant. It was published in many languages and the symbols were used to transcend language to describe move quality.

"Best Move" means it's the top move calculated by a chess engine.

Question and exclamation marks were used in chess annotations long before Chess Informant, but CI developed a system of codes to annotate far more. For example, bishop pair, only move, weak square, and more than a dozen others.