Reading Results

The Engine panel and Notation panel together show everything the engine knows about the current position. Here is how to read each element.

Centipawn score

The score at the top of the Engine panel represents the engine’s evaluation of the current position.

• A positive number (e.g. +1.20) means White is better by approximately 1.2 pawns’ worth of advantage.
• A negative number (e.g. −0.45) means Black is better.
• M5 means forced mate in 5 moves (positive = White mates, negative = Black mates).
• 0.00 is a perfectly equal position.

Centipawn scores are most useful for comparing positions: a move that goes from +0.1 to +1.5 is a significant blunder, while a move that goes from +0.1 to +0.3 is a small inaccuracy.

Evaluation bar

Beside the board sits a vertical evaluation bar that mirrors the engine’s score: the white portion grows as White’s advantage increases, and the black portion as Black’s does. Hover over it to see the exact score. The bar updates in real time as the engine searches deeper.

Note

The three-segment Win/Draw/Loss bar elsewhere in Masterboard — in the Explorer and on the Statistics and Reports pages — shows the proportion of actual game results from real games, not a live engine probability.

Principal variation lines

The Engine panel shows up to 5 principal variation (PV) lines. Each line displays:

• The candidate move
• The evaluation score for that line
• The search depth
• The full move sequence (the “principal variation” — how the engine expects play to continue)

Clicking a PV line

Click any move in a PV line to navigate the board to that position, showing exactly how the variation would play out. Press ← to return to the position you were viewing before.

Number of lines (MultiPV)

The number of lines shown is controlled by the Lines selector (1–5) in the Engine panel itself — not in Settings. More lines give you more alternatives to consider, but may reduce the search depth the engine reaches in the same time.

Best-move arrows

The Engine panel has an arrows toggle that overlays the engine’s top candidate moves directly on the board. With MultiPV showing several lines, you see the leading alternatives at a glance without reading the move list. Turn it off if the arrows clutter the position.

Comparing two engines

You can run a second engine alongside the first for a side-by-side comparison on the same position — for example, Stockfish against a human-style Maia network to see where a strong engine and a human-like one disagree. Enable the second engine from the Engine panel; both evaluate the current position and their scores and PV lines are shown together.

NAG symbols in the Notation panel

After automated analysis, move classifications appear inline in the Notation panel’s move tree:

• ?! — inaccuracy
• ? — mistake
• ?? — blunder
• ! — good move (can be added manually)
• !! — brilliant move (can be added manually)

Click any move in the Notation panel to jump directly to that position on the board.

Accuracy percentages

After automated analysis, the Notation panel header shows per-player accuracy as a percentage. This uses the Lichess WDL-based formula: each move is scored by how much the Win probability changed from the engine’s best move, then averaged across all moves. 100% means every move matched the engine’s top choice.