When you read a chess book, study a master game, or run engine analysis, you will see little marks tacked onto the moves: an exclamation point here, a question mark there, a +/- floating after a position. These are annotation symbols, and they are a compact language for sharing judgment about a game. They tell you what a commentator thought of a move and who stands better, all without a sentence of prose.

The key thing to understand up front: these symbols are not part of the move itself. A move like Nf3 describes what happened on the board. An annotation like Nf3! adds an opinion about it. You add these marks after the game, during analysis, once you have had time to think. They are commentary, not bookkeeping. If you are still learning to record the moves themselves, start with chess notation explained.

Move Evaluation Symbols

Move symbols attach to a single move and rate how good or bad it was. There are six you will see constantly.

Symbol	Name	Meaning
!	Good move	A strong, well-judged move worth noting
!!	Brilliant move	An excellent, often surprising or hard-to-find move
?	Mistake	A weak move that worsens the position
??	Blunder	A serious error, often losing material or the game
!?	Interesting move	A move worth considering, possibly risky but reasonable
?!	Dubious move	A questionable move that is probably not best

The pattern is easy once you see it. Exclamation points are praise; question marks are criticism. Double them up for emphasis: !! is the highest praise, ?? is the worst condemnation.

The mixed pair trips people up. !? means an interesting move — the exclamation comes first, so the leaning is positive. It often marks an enterprising or double-edged choice that a commentator respects even if it is not clearly best. ?! means a dubious move — the question mark comes first, so the leaning is negative. It flags something that looks suspect but is not an outright mistake.

Examples

• 25. Rxh7+!! — a rook sacrifice that wins by force. Brilliant.
• 18... Qd7?? — hangs a piece on the next move. A blunder.
• 12. g4!? — a sharp pawn thrust that loosens the king but creates chances. Interesting.
• 9. h3?! — a slow move that wastes a tempo without real purpose. Dubious.

Position Assessment Symbols

Move symbols judge a move. Position symbols judge the whole position at a given moment — who is doing better and by how much. These usually appear at the end of a line of analysis to summarize where things stand.

Symbol	Meaning
=	The position is equal
+/=	White is slightly better
=/+	Black is slightly better
+/-	White is clearly better
-/+	Black is clearly better
+-	White is winning
-+	Black is winning
∞	The position is unclear

In print these are often shown as single typeset glyphs (for example, a small plus-over-equals sign for a slight edge), but the ASCII versions above are what you will type and what most software understands. Read them as a sliding scale: = in the middle, a small edge with the slash forms, a clear advantage with +/- or -/+, and a decisive, essentially won position with +- or -+. The infinity sign ∞ is the commentator's honest shrug — sharp and genuinely double-edged, with no clear verdict.

So a line might end like this:

14. Bd3 Nxe4 15. Bxe4 d5 +/=

meaning that after Black's 15th move, White holds a slight pull.

How Symbols Are Stored in PGN

Annotation symbols are commentary, so they need a home in the file format that stores chess games. That format is PGN. If PGN is new to you, see what is PGN.

PGN handles annotations two ways:

1. Inline glyphs. The symbol is written directly after the move, exactly as in a book: Nf3! or e5 +/-. This is human-readable and what you will type by hand.
2. NAGs (Numeric Annotation Glyphs). PGN also defines a numbered code for each symbol, written with a dollar sign. A program may store Nf3 $1 instead of Nf3!. The numbers are standardized, so software can display them as the right symbol in any language.

A few common NAG codes:

• $1 = good move (!)
• $2 = mistake (?)
• $3 = brilliant move (!!)
• $4 = blunder (??)
• $5 = interesting move (!?)
• $6 = dubious move (?!)
• $10 = equal position (=)
• $14 = White slightly better, $16 = White clearly better, $18 = White winning (and the negatives for Black)

You rarely type NAGs yourself. They matter because when you import or export a game, the symbols you wrote may be saved as $-codes under the hood — and good tools translate them back to readable glyphs automatically.

Putting It to Work

Annotation is most useful when you do it on your own games. Play through a game, mark the turning points with ? and ??, flag the moves you are proud of with !, and note how the assessment shifts with +/- or =. That habit turns a pile of moves into a lesson you can actually learn from. Our guide on how to analyze chess games from scoresheets walks through the full process.

Of course, you cannot annotate a game that only exists on a paper scoresheet. That is where ScanChess comes in: snap a photo of your handwritten scoresheet, and our AI reads the moves, converts them to SAN, validates each one for legality, and gives you a downloadable PGN. From there you can replay the game, add your own ! and ? marks, and study it properly.

You can even start from a position rather than a full game. Have a photo of a board you want to assess? Our board recognition scanner turns a picture of the pieces into a FEN string you can load into any engine.

Ready to turn your games into something you can study? Try the ScanChess board scanner and get started with free credits.