In analysis I believe those values are used to display the position's score, with a higher positive number indicating white's advantage, and a lower/negative number indicating black's advantage. Close to zero means the position is more or less even, based on the pawn's value. I believe it's usually used in computer calculations.
For instance if the move 5. Bxc3 is notated 2.65, the position resulting from that move is showing an advantage of 2.65 pawn units to white.
Thats what I thought but I wasn't sure.
That must be some pretty complex calculations combining material and position into a number format...
I thought that at first... until i saw random scores like 6 - 1 = 9 okay maybe not exactly that score... but scores where the numbers don't add up...
like +7 -4 =7 :P
(+7 -4 =7) is, as you suspect, 7 wins, 4 losses, 7 draws.
Points are more like a composite:
1 pt. for winning, 0 for losing .5 for drawing.
So, the same result in points would be 7 points (for 7 wins) + 0 points (for 4 losses) + 3.5 points (for 7 draws) = 10.5/18 or 10.5 points out of 18 possible points.
Points are easier for determining ranking while the (+7 -4 =7) explains better where the points came from.
I've been noticing when there is talk about tournament results people use notation like +7 -4 = 7... which I think means wins losses draws... is this system used more than just points out of possible points? (can't believe I didn't get that till just now)
Also when reading peoples analysis I often see them talking about a move being 0.18 or some such other thing. What do these numbers mean? it seems that 0.18 for one player means -0.18 for the other... but how is this calculated? is this just computer speak?