Game Analysis

Making moves, variations, comments, annotations, and board controls

The analysis board is where you study chess positions, explore ideas, and build your understanding of a game. Whether you're reviewing your own games or analyzing a grandmaster's masterpiece, this is your workspace for deep chess study.

The Ribbon Menu

At the top of every board tab is a ribbon menu with tabs that group related actions. Click a tab name to switch between ribbon views, or click the toggle button on the right to hide the ribbon entirely and save screen space.

Home

The default ribbon showing frequently used actions: Save Game, Copy PGN, Paste PGN, engine and database toggles, Transposition (jump to the next occurrence of the current position), and Exchange Moves (swap transposition variations).

File

File operations for managing your game: Save, Save As (to a collection), Export (download as .pgn), Import, Copy/Paste PGN, Copy/Paste FEN, Share Game, and broadcasting controls (Broadcast to start a live broadcast, Watch Live to follow a shared game in real time).

Edit

Move editing and tree management: Undo/Redo, Position Setup (FEN editor), Search Position (find in all databases), and variation operations — Promote, Delete Variation, Delete After, Delete Before.

View

Toggle panel visibility: Notation, Database, Correspondence, Local Engine, Cloud Engine, and Player Preparation. Each button shows/hides the corresponding panel.

Board

Board appearance settings: Flip Board, Show/Hide Coordinates, Piece Set dropdown (31 sets to choose from — classic, modern, artistic, and more), and Board Color dropdown (16 color themes).

Settings

Opens the global settings panel.

Tip: The ribbon is a convenient alternative when you don't remember a keyboard shortcut — but for actions you use often, learning the shortcut is faster. Most ribbon actions show their keyboard shortcut in a tooltip when you hover.

Making Moves

There are two ways to make moves on the board:

Click-click: Click a piece to select it, then click the destination square.
Drag and drop: Click and hold a piece, drag it to the target square, and release.

If multiple pieces can move to the same square (e.g., two knights), hold Ctrl and click the destination to see a disambiguation popup that lets you pick which piece to move.

Tip: New to chess software? Just click a piece and click where you want it to go. The board will highlight legal moves to help you out.

Creating Variations

Variations are branching "what if" lines — alternative moves you want to explore without losing the main line. They're one of the most powerful tools for chess study.

To create a variation, simply navigate to any position in your game and play a different move. Chess.ceo automatically creates a new branch in the move tree. You can nest variations as deep as you like.

When you navigate forward through a position that has multiple branches, a popup appears showing the available continuations. Use ↑/↓ to select a line and Enter to follow it.

Overwrite Mode

Sometimes you don't want to create a branch — you want to replace the existing moves entirely. Hold Shift while making a move to delete all subsequent moves and continue from that point.

Special Moves

Null Move

A null move skips a turn, letting the other side move twice in a row. This isn't legal in real chess, but it's invaluable for analysis — it answers the question "what would my opponent do if I just passed?"

Press 0 to play a null move. This is especially useful combined with engine analysis to understand threats in a position.

Engine Move

Press Space to instantly play the engine's current top recommendation on the board. This is a quick way to follow the engine's suggested line without manually entering each move.

Working with Variations

Once you've built up several variations, you can organize them using keyboard shortcuts, the Edit ribbon, or by right-clicking a move in the notation panel:

Shortcut	Action	What it does
`Ctrl`+`↑`	Promote variation	Moves the current variation one level up in the tree, making it more prominent
`Delete`	Delete variation	Removes the entire current variation branch
`[`	Delete before	Removes all moves before the current position in this line
`]`	Delete after	Removes all moves after the current position in this line

All of these actions are also available from the notation panel's bottom toolbar (the annotation bar) and from the right-click context menu on any move.

Comments & Annotations

You can annotate any move with text comments or standard chess symbols. There are three ways to add annotations:

Keyboard shortcuts — the fastest way, described below
Right-click context menu — right-click any move in the notation panel for submenus with all move annotations, positional assessments, and comment options
Annotation toolbar — the bottom bar of the notation panel has clickable buttons for all annotation types (enable via "Show Annotation Buttons" in settings)

For quick move quality annotations, use these keyboard shortcuts while a move is selected:

Keys	Symbol	Meaning
`!`	!	Good move (press twice for !! — brilliant move)
`?`	?	Bad move (press twice for ?? — blunder)
`!` then `?`	!?	Interesting move — worth considering
`?` then `!`	?!	Dubious move — probably not the best
`Backspace`		Clear all annotations from the current move

Positional evaluation symbols

Beyond move quality, you can also annotate the overall position using two-key sequences. Press the first key, then the second — the annotation appears when the sequence completes.

Keys	Symbol	Meaning
`=`	=	Equal position
`+` then `=`	⩲	White is slightly better
`+` then `_`	±	White is clearly better
`+` then `-`	+−	White is winning
`=` then `+`	⩱	Black is slightly better
`_` then `+`	∓	Black is clearly better
`-` then `+`	−+	Black is winning

Drawing Arrows & Highlights

Mark key ideas directly on the board using arrows and square highlights. These annotations are saved with your game and visible in the notation.

Draw an arrow: Hold Alt and drag from one square to another.
Highlight a square: Hold Alt and click a square.
Clear all: Right-click the board to remove all arrows and highlights.

Combine Alt with modifier keys to change the color:

Modifier	Color (left click)	Color (right click)
`Alt`	Green	Blue
`Alt`+`Shift`	Red	Light blue
`Alt`+`Ctrl`	Yellow	Orange

Tip: Use different colors to distinguish between themes — for example, green for your plan, red for your opponent's threats.

Board Controls

Shortcut	Action
`F`	Flip board — switch perspective between White and Black
`S`	Open position setup — enter or edit a FEN to set up any position
`N`	New game — reset the board to the starting position
`T`	Transpose — jump to the next occurrence of the current position elsewhere in the game tree

Undo & Redo

Made a change you didn't mean to? Press Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y to redo. Chess.ceo keeps a history of up to 50 actions, so you can safely experiment without worrying about losing your work.

Quick Reference

All game analysis shortcuts in one place:

Shortcut	Action
`←` / `→`	Navigate back / forward one move
`↑` / `↓`	Select variation at branch points
`Home` / `End`	Jump to start / end of game
`Space`	Play engine's best move
`0`	Null move (skip a turn)
`Ctrl`+`↑`	Promote variation
`Delete`	Delete variation
`[` / `]`	Delete before / after current position
`!` `?`	Move annotations (combinable)
`Backspace`	Clear annotations
`F`	Flip board
`S`	Position setup
`N`	New game
`T`	Transpose
`Ctrl`+`Z` / `Ctrl`+`Y`	Undo / Redo
`Alt`+drag	Draw arrow
`Alt`+click	Highlight square

← Getting Started Engine Analysis →