Best Engine for Game Analysis and Annotation?

[chessdev]

I'm curious to know which are the best engines at providing human-understandable annotations? Are there engines that can provide more NAGs or helpful output when analyzing games (other than just moves, score evaluations, and key lines)?

I'm just looking to get the best game analyzer possible - not the highest performing engine.

Thanks!

[Kirk]

I'm curious to know which are the best engines at providing human-understandable annotations? Are there engines that can provide more NAGs or helpful output when analyzing games (other than just moves, score evaluations, and key lines)?

I'm just looking to get the best game analyzer possible - not the highest performing engine.

Thanks!

Sounds like Chessmaster you are looking for with "Natural Language Advice"

http://www.gamesquad.com/review/chessma ... er-edition

[chessdev]

Thanks. Unfortunately that isn't a UCI engine and so doesn't take programming commands like I need it to...

Any other ideas!?

[Kirk]

Thanks. Unfortunately that isn't a UCI engine and so doesn't take programming commands like I need it to...

Any other ideas!?

Fritz GUI can add some verbose analysis as well.

If you are asking for trusted UCI engines you will get a lot a choices here. Stockfish and Hiarcs are a couple

[Martin Brown]

Thanks. Unfortunately that isn't a UCI engine and so doesn't take programming commands like I need it to...

Any other ideas!?

Fritz GUI can add some verbose analysis as well.

Even though (through inertia) I mostly use the Fritz GUI I would find it very hard to recommend its irritating "human friendly" commentary.

I prefer to run blundercheck with a fairly narrow window and saved evalutations and then flick through the game looking at any significant discontinuities in the evaluation with infinite analysis and 3-5 lines explored. It would be nice to have an automated way of doing this that actually obeyed the window settings. Fritz GUI is seriously deficient in this respect. It also in CP9, CP10 doesn't always display the true game evaluation in the summary graph for reasons that completely escape me.

I like Shredder10 for annotating games. It seems to find the most interesting lines more reliably than the other engines I have to hand. YMMV

[noctiferus]

"its irritating "human friendly" commentary"

Irritating or hilarious? Typical comment: "This doesn't save the day"!
Thanks so much, I couldn't understand it, looking simply to evaluations...

[Martin Brown]

"its irritating "human friendly" commentary"

Irritating or hilarious? Typical comment: "This doesn't save the day"!
Thanks so much, I couldn't understand it, looking simply to evaluations...

My pet hate is something about "Bullocks off the ice". I presume it must be a German saying that loses something in the translation. I almost never use the verbose annotation mode - much preferring blundercheck but well aware of its weaknesses too.

I think the original question should probably be rephrased to "which is the best program for annotating games?". Or maybe even "What information should a dedicated games annotating program present?". None of the GUIs I have tried really do a good job without some human intervention.

To start the ball rolling I would suggest output to CSV one ply per line with statistics to include depth, Top 3 or 4 candidate moves with evals, total moves, moves>50cp, moves<-50cp, PV (if not played in game), refuted line if deep search rejects something initally plausible. And then a final sweep through looking more carefully at any sudden discontinuities.

Are there any programs out there dedicated to annotating games as opposed to playing them?