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Well, I am new here and I am not quite sure whether this question is appropriate here. In case it is inappropriate, please tell me the correct site for it.Well, my question is :

I want a chess software in which I can play against chess engines or players and also I want the software to evaluate each move and give me marks accordingly and instantaneously. (Note : I have already tried Ubisoft's Chessmaster but I want a software that will evaluate how much percent I am correct not just whether my move is the best move or not.)Can anyone please name any such software. I am ready to buy it in case it is not free-ware. Lots of thanks in advance.

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  • I want the software to evaluate each move and give me marks accordingly and instantaneously. (Note : I have already tried Ubisoft's Chessmaster but I want a software that will evaluate how much percent I am correct not just whether my move is the best move or not.) -> I don't quite understand this part. Sounds to me like you should be looking for training software but these are only available for openings as far as I know... The question is just fine and on topic, don't worry. Welcome to Chess SE! Jul 12, 2014 at 23:02
  • @AlwaysLearningNewStuff, I don't know about training software but it should work for an entire game and it should give me marks accordingly. Thanks. Jul 13, 2014 at 4:05
  • I am not aware of existence of that type of software... Jul 13, 2014 at 9:20
  • http://standardchess.com they have an interesting tool for analysis ...
    – user10349
    May 20, 2016 at 23:39

6 Answers 6

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I want a software that will evaluate how much percent I am correct not just whether my move is the best move or not.

Chess engines do not usually evaluate moves as percentages (and I'm not even sure how that would work tbh), but by evaluating the position in terms of a normative standard (like the material value of 1 pawn, with +1 meaning white is up by 1 pawn, and -1 meaning that black is up by one pawn) assuming optimal play.

Simply put: every position has an evaluation based on positional and material considerations (which is engine dependent, hence why different engines would often assign different evaluations to the same position). Every move you make causes a transition between two distinct positions, and the quality of your move is the difference of this evaluation from the before to after position.

If the engine got the evaluation right, the optimal move has value 0. The value is 0 because the engine believes that this is the optimal move, and assigned the evaluation based on that move. From white's perspective, a sub-optimal move would have a value of < 0. A value of -0.3, for example, would typically mean that the position after the move was made is now 1/3 pawn worse than before.

Almost every chess engine I've come across can show you the difference in evaluation between two positions, or it is at least easy to calculate (if the evaluation went from 1.2 to 0.7 after white's move, then the move quality was -0.5, or half the value of a pawn, which is typically considered a reasonably big blunder). Shredder and DroidFish (which is free and available on Android) are examples of chess apps that provide this feature, but there are many others on pretty much every conceivable platform.

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  • Can you name one such software for XP Aug 4, 2014 at 13:50
  • Arena Chess (playwitharena.com) can do it, although I find it a bit technical to get going.
    – firtydank
    Aug 4, 2014 at 16:15
  • Arena Chess can show you the score for various moves. You can expand the window until you see your move. This reduces errors based on whose turn it is.
    – Mike Jones
    May 21, 2016 at 10:37
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If you want to know the quality of every move and a estimated ELO strength for each player you can use the Android app called "Analyze your games". It uses Stockfish internally to compare your moves with the best ones.

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  • I hope that you are talking about the pro app that costs Rs.199. Am I wrong? Sep 11, 2014 at 4:07
  • I am curious. How does that ELO estimator work? (You're probably not going to offer me a master's thesis on the mathematics of it here, but I'd be interested in a vague outline of the mathematics, if you happen to know it.)
    – thb
    May 26, 2016 at 23:10
  • Actually, I believe that my last comment is a question. I had better now ask it as such.
    – thb
    May 26, 2016 at 23:11
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The app "Analyze your games" is free (no adds) and you can find it here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bento.analyzeyourgames

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If you leave an engine running, and step through a game, you can see what happens to the evaluation. The Fritz interface flashes a red signal light when one side has made a mistake. Most GUI's allow you to run an engine in Infinite Analysis or Kibitzer mode, eg. Arena, SCID, Winboard, etc.

There have been a few programs that generate move by move engine numbers for full games for Windows: Gerd Hübner's ChessAnalyse and Jack Welbourne's Chess Game Report.

I wasn't able to get Analyze Your Games to work on my Samsung Galaxy phone. The board was unresponsive to touch, and it just gave me an error message when I imported pgn from Chess PGN Master Pro or Droidfish.

A lot of programs have a full game analysis feature where they attach question marks to bad moves, and suggest alternatives, eg. Fritz, Hiarcs Chess Explorer, Shredder, Aquarium, Arena, SCID.

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I understand what are you thinking at this point. Even I would also like to have software which would tell me the move is between two category levels. Let's say, software which says after you play a move that this move is a

  1. A Super GM Level move. above 2700 Elo
  2. A GM/IM level move. above 2500 and < 2700.
  3. A Master Level move. 2200-2400
  4. 2000-2199
  5. Amateur Level below 2000
  6. An Experienced level 1600-1800

and continue till the beginner level.

It would be a nice way of learning, but unfortunately it is yet to come out.

The only thing which you can make out is feed your game to StockFish / Fritz and see after every move you make, the score of the game changes. Since computer engines also calculate depending upon depth and do a lot of calculations, you can see, according to the score, who is better at any point. If you are playing White and the score is always > +0.0 and gradually rises, then you can be sure that you did not make any mistake.

You will also see a lot of lines that the computer suggests, and if most of your moves match, then definitely, you have played very well .

But please note one thing, there are some positions which Computers are not able to analyse, so do not get biased completely by the system. Instead a Coach's recommendation is more useful. Computers always give you a negative score when playing gambits.

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I'm pretty sure ChessBase does everything you want (and a lot more). It can analyse games in real time and much deeper if you leave it running. It also has the option to give better alternative moves.

I use an older version so I'm not sure of the latest prices and capabilities but I'd definitely look it up.

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  • Does ChessBase estimate the player's ELO? Does it objectively do this well?
    – thb
    May 26, 2016 at 23:08

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