Standard Portable Game Notation Specification and

Implementation Guide

Revised: 1994.03.12

Authors: Interested readers of the Internet newsgroup rec.games.chess

Coordinator: Steven J. Edwards (send comments to sje@world.std.com)

Transcription to Word: Steven Pigeon (send to pigeon@iro.umontreal.ca)

2
 CONTENTS
1: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................9

2: CHESS DATA REPRESENTATION .....................................................................................11

2.1: DATA INTERCHANGE INCOMPATIBILITY .................................................................................11

2.2: SPECIFICATION GOALS ...........................................................................................................11
2.3: A SAMPLE PGN GAME ..........................................................................................................12

3: FORMATS: IMPORT AND EXPORT...................................................................................13

3.1: IMPORT FORMAT ALLOWS FOR MANUALLY PREPARED DATA .................................................13

3.2: EXPORT FORMAT USED FOR PROGRAM GENERATED OUTPUT .................................................13
3.2.1: Byte equivalence ...........................................................................................................13
3.2.2: Archival storage and the newline character .................................................................14
3.2.3: Speed of processing ......................................................................................................14
3.2.4: Reduced export format..................................................................................................14
4: LEXICOGRAPHICAL ISSUES..............................................................................................15

4.1: CHARACTER CODES...............................................................................................................15

4.2: TAB CHARACTERS .................................................................................................................16
4.3: LINE LENGTHS .......................................................................................................................16

5: COMMENTARY ......................................................................................................................17

6: ESCAPE MECHANISM ..........................................................................................................19

7: TOKENS....................................................................................................................................21

8: PARSING GAMES...................................................................................................................23

8.1: TAG PAIR SECTION.................................................................................................................23

8.1.1: Seven Tag Roster ..........................................................................................................24
8.1.1.1: The Event tag........................................................................................................................ 25
8.1.1.2: The Site tag........................................................................................................................... 25
8.1.1.3: The Date tag.......................................................................................................................... 25
8.1.1.4: The Round tag ...................................................................................................................... 26
8.1.1.5: The White tag ....................................................................................................................... 26
8.1.1.6: The Black tag........................................................................................................................ 27
8.1.1.7: The Result tag....................................................................................................................... 27
8.2: MOVETEXT SECTION .............................................................................................................27
8.2.1: Movetext line justification.............................................................................................27
8.2.2: Movetext move number indications ..............................................................................28
8.2.2.1: Import format move number indications............................................................................... 28
8.2.2.2: Export format move number indications............................................................................... 28
8.2.3: Movetext SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation)..............................................................29
8.2.3.1: Square identification............................................................................................................. 29
8.2.3.2: Piece identification ............................................................................................................... 29

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 8.2.3.3: Basic SAN move construction .............................................................................................. 30
8.2.3.4: Disambiguation..................................................................................................................... 30
8.2.3.5: Check and checkmate indication characters.......................................................................... 31
8.2.3.6: SAN move length ................................................................................................................. 31
8.2.3.7: Import and export SAN ........................................................................................................ 31
8.2.3.8: SAN move suffix annotations ............................................................................................... 32
8.2.4: Movetext NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyph) ................................................................32
8.2.5: Movetext RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation) .........................................................32
8.2.6: Game Termination Markers..........................................................................................32
9: SUPPLEMENTAL TAG NAMES...........................................................................................35

9.1: PLAYER RELATED INFORMATION ...........................................................................................35

9.1.1: Tags: WhiteTitle, BlackTitle .........................................................................................35
9.1.2: Tags: WhiteElo, BlackElo.............................................................................................35
9.1.3: Tags: WhiteUSCF, BlackUSCF ....................................................................................35
9.1.4: Tags: WhiteNA, BlackNA..............................................................................................35
9.1.5: Tags: WhiteType, BlackType ........................................................................................36
9.2: EVENT RELATED INFORMATION .............................................................................................36
9.2.1: Tag: EventDate.............................................................................................................36
9.2.2: Tag: EventSponsor........................................................................................................36
9.2.3: Tag: Section ..................................................................................................................36
9.2.4: Tag: Stage.....................................................................................................................36
9.2.5: Tag: Board....................................................................................................................36
9.3: OPENING INFORMATION (LOCALE SPECIFIC) ..........................................................................36
9.3.1: Tag: Opening ................................................................................................................37
9.3.2: Tag: Variation ..............................................................................................................37
9.3.3: Tag: SubVariation ........................................................................................................37
9.4: OPENING INFORMATION (THIRD PARTY VENDORS) ................................................................37
9.4.1: Tag: ECO......................................................................................................................37
9.4.2: Tag: NIC .......................................................................................................................37
9.5: TIME AND DATE RELATED INFORMATION...............................................................................38
9.5.1: Tag: Time......................................................................................................................38
9.5.2: Tag: UTCTime ..............................................................................................................38
9.5.3: Tag: UTCDate ..............................................................................................................38
9.6: TIME CONTROL......................................................................................................................38
9.6.1: Tag: TimeControl .........................................................................................................38
9.7: ALTERNATIVE STARTING POSITIONS ......................................................................................39
9.7.1: Tag: SetUp ....................................................................................................................40
9.7.2: Tag: FEN ......................................................................................................................40
9.8: GAME CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................40
9.8.1: Tag: Termination ..........................................................................................................40
9.9: MISCELLANEOUS...................................................................................................................41
9.9.1: Tag: Annotator..............................................................................................................41
9.9.2: Tag: Mode.....................................................................................................................41
9.9.3: Tag: PlyCount...............................................................................................................41
10: NUMERIC ANNOTATION GLYPHS .................................................................................43

11: FILE NAMES AND DIRECTORIES ...................................................................................47

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 11.1: FILE NAME SUFFIX FOR PGN DATA .....................................................................................47
11.2: FILE NAME FORMATION FOR PGN DATA FOR A SPECIFIC PLAYER ........................................47
11.3: FILE NAME FORMATION FOR PGN DATA FOR A SPECIFIC EVENT ..........................................47
11.4: FILE NAME FORMATION FOR PGN DATA FOR CHRONOLOGICALLY ORDERED GAMES ...........47
11.5: SUGGESTED DIRECTORY TREE ORGANIZATION ....................................................................48

12: PGN COLLATING SEQUENCE ..........................................................................................49

13: PGN SOFTWARE ..................................................................................................................51

13.1: THE SAN KIT .....................................................................................................................51

13.2: PGNREAD ............................................................................................................................52
13.3: MAIL2PGN/GIICS................................................................................................................52
13.4: XBOARD .............................................................................................................................52
13.5: CUPGN .................................................................................................................................52
13.6: ZARKOV ..............................................................................................................................53
13.7: CHESS ASSISTANT ...............................................................................................................53
13.8: BOOKUP ...........................................................................................................................54
13.9: HIARCS .............................................................................................................................55
13.10: DEJA VU ...........................................................................................................................55
13.11: MV2PGN .........................................................................................................................55
13.12: THE HANSEN UTILITIES (CB2PGN, NIC2PGN, PGN2CB, PGN2NIC) .......................................55
13.13: SLAPPY THE DATABASE ....................................................................................................56
13.14: CBASCII ..........................................................................................................................56
13.15: ZZZZZZ ...........................................................................................................................56
13.16: ICSCONV............................................................................................................................57
13.17: CHESSOP (CHESSOPN/CHESSOPG)...........................................................................57
13.18: CAT2PGN........................................................................................................................57
13.19: PGN2OPG ...........................................................................................................................57

14: PGN DATA ARCHIVES........................................................................................................59

15: INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE COUNTRY CODES ..............................61

16: ADDITIONAL CHESS DATA STANDARDS .....................................................................65

16.1: FEN ....................................................................................................................................65

16.1.1: History ........................................................................................................................65
16.1.2: Uses for a position notation........................................................................................65
16.1.3: Data fields...................................................................................................................65
16.1.3.1: Piece placement data........................................................................................................... 66
16.1.3.2: Active color ........................................................................................................................ 66

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 16.1.3.3: Castling availability ............................................................................................................ 66
16.1.3.4: En passant target square...................................................................................................... 66
16.1.3.5: Halfmove clock................................................................................................................... 67
16.1.3.6: Fullmove number................................................................................................................ 67
16.1.4: Examples.....................................................................................................................67
16.2: EPD ....................................................................................................................................68
16.2.1: History ........................................................................................................................68
16.2.2: Uses for an extended position notation.......................................................................68
16.2.3: Data fields...................................................................................................................68
16.2.3.1: Piece placement data........................................................................................................... 69
16.2.3.2: Active color ........................................................................................................................ 69
16.2.3.3: Castling availability ............................................................................................................ 69
16.2.3.4: En passant target square...................................................................................................... 69
16.2.4: Operations ..................................................................................................................70
16.2.4.1: General format .................................................................................................................... 70
16.2.4.2: Opcode mnemonics ............................................................................................................ 71
16.2.5: Opcode list ..................................................................................................................71
16.2.5.1: Opcode “acn”: analysis count: nodes.................................................................................. 71
16.2.5.2: Opcode “acs”: analysis count: seconds............................................................................... 72
16.2.5.3: Opcode “am”: avoid move(s).............................................................................................. 72
16.2.5.4: Opcode “bm”: best move(s)................................................................................................ 72
16.2.5.5: Opcode “c0”: comment (primary, also “c1” though “c9”).................................................. 72
16.2.5.6: Opcode “ce”: centipawn evaluation.................................................................................... 73
16.2.5.7: Opcode “dm”: direct mate fullmove count ......................................................................... 73
16.2.5.8: Opcode “draw_accept”: accept a draw offer....................................................................... 74
16.2.5.9: Opcode “draw_claim”: claim a draw .................................................................................. 74
16.2.5.10: Opcode “draw_offer”: offer a draw .................................................................................. 74
16.2.5.11: Opcode “draw_reject”: reject a draw offer........................................................................ 74
16.2.5.12: Opcode “eco”: Encyclopedia of Chess Openings opening code ....................................... 74
16.2.5.13: Opcode “fmvn”: fullmove number.................................................................................... 75
16.2.5.14: Opcode “hmvc”: halfmove clock ...................................................................................... 75
16.2.5.15: Opcode “id”: position identification ................................................................................. 75
16.2.5.16: Opcode “nic”: New In Chess opening code.................................................................... 76
16.2.5.17: Opcode “noop”: no operation ........................................................................................... 76
16.2.5.18: Opcode “pm”: predicted move.......................................................................................... 76
16.2.5.19: Opcode “pv”: predicted variation ..................................................................................... 76
16.2.5.20: Opcode “rc”: repetition count........................................................................................... 76
16.2.5.21: Opcode “resign”: game resignation .................................................................................. 77
16.2.5.22: Opcode “sm”: supplied move ........................................................................................... 77
16.2.5.23: Opcode “tcgs”: telecommunication: game selector........................................................... 77
16.2.5.24: Opcode “tcri”: telecommunication: receiver identification............................................... 77
16.2.5.25: Opcode “tcsi”: telecommunication: sender identification................................................. 77
16.2.5.26: Opcode “v0”: variation name (primary, also “v1” though “v9”) ...................................... 78
17: ALTERNATIVE CHESSPIECE IDENTIFIER LETTERS................................................79

18: FORMAL SYNTAX ...............................................................................................................81

19: CANONICAL CHESS POSITION HASH CODING ..........................................................83

20: BINARY REPRESENTATION (PGC) .................................................................................85

20.1: BYTES, WORDS, AND DOUBLEWORDS..................................................................................85

20.2: MOVE ORDINALS .................................................................................................................86
20.3: STRING DATA ......................................................................................................................86

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 20.4: MARKER CODES ..................................................................................................................87
20.4.1: Marker 0x01: reduced export format single game......................................................87
20.4.2: Marker 0x02: tag pair.................................................................................................87
20.4.3: Marker 0x03: short move sequence ............................................................................88
20.4.4: Marker 0x04: long move sequence .............................................................................88
20.4.5: Marker 0x05: general game data begin......................................................................88
20.4.6: Marker 0x06: general game data end.........................................................................88
20.4.7: Marker 0x07: simple-nag............................................................................................88
20.4.8: Marker 0x08: rav-begin..............................................................................................89
20.4.9: Marker 0x09: rav-end.................................................................................................89
20.4.10: Marker 0x0a: escape-string......................................................................................89
21: E-MAIL CORRESPONDENCE USAGE .............................................................................91

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8
1: Introduction

If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they
have started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever
they propose to do.

Genesis XI, v.6, New American Bible

PGN is “Portable Game Notation”, a standard designed for the representation of chess game
data using ASCII text files. PGN is structured for easy reading and writing by human users and for
easy parsing and generation by computer programs. The intent of the definition and propagation of
PGN is to facilitate the sharing of public domain chess game data among chessplayers (both organic
and otherwise), publishers, and computer chess researchers throughout the world.

PGN is not intended to be a general purpose standard that is suitable for every possible use; no
such standard could fill all conceivable requirements. Instead, PGN is proposed as a universal portable
representation for data interchange. The idea is to allow the construction of a family of chess
applications that can quickly and easily process chess game data using PGN for import and export
among themselves.

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10
2: Chess data representation

Computer usage among chessplayers has become quite common in recent years and a variety
of different programs, both commercial and public domain, are used to generate, access, and propagate
chess game data. Some of these programs are rather impressive; most are now well behaved in that
they correctly follow the Laws of Chess and handle users’ data with reasonable care. Unfortunately,
many programs have had serious problems with several aspects of the external representation of chess
game data. Sometimes these problems become more visible when a user attempts to move significant
quantities of data from one program to another; if there has been no real effort to ensure portability of
data, then the chances for a successful transfer are small at best.

2.1: Data interchange incompatibility

The reasons for format incompatibility are easy to understand. In fact, most of them are
correlated with the same problems that have already been seen with commercial software offerings for
other domains such as word processing, spreadsheets, fonts, and graphics. Sometimes a manufacturer
deliberately designs a data format using encryption or some other secret, proprietary technique to “lock
in” a customer. Sometimes a designer may produce a format that can be deciphered without too much
difficulty, but at the same time publicly discourage third party software by claiming trade secret
protection. Another software producer may develop a non-proprietary system, but it may work well
only within the scope of a single program or application because it is not easily expandable. Finally,
some other software may work very well for many purposes, but it uses symbols and language not
easily understood by people or computers available to those outside the country of its development.

2.2: Specification goals

A specification for a portable game notation must observe the lessons of history and be able to
handle probable needs of the future. The design criteria for PGN were selected to meet these needs.
These criteria include:

1) The details of the system must be publicly available and free of unnecessary complexity. Ideally,
if the documentation is not available for some reason, typical chess software developers and users
should be able to understand most of the data without the need for third party assistance.

11
 2) The details of the system must be non-proprietary so that users and software developers are
unrestricted by concerns about infringing on intellectual property rights. The idea is to let chess
programmers compete in a free market where customers may choose software based on their real
needs and not based on artificial requirements created by a secret data format.

3) The system must work for a variety of programs. The format should be such that it can be used by
chess database programs, chess publishing programs, chess server programs, and chessplaying
programs without being unnecessarily specific to any particular application class.

4) The system must be easily expandable and scalable. The expansion ability must include handling
data items that may not exist currently but could be expected to emerge in the future. (Examples:
new opening classifications and new country names.) The system should be scalable in that it must
not have any arbitrary restrictions concerning the quantity of stored data. Also, planned modes of
expansion should either preserve earlier databases or at least allow for their automatic conversion.

5) The system must be international. Chess software users are found in many countries and the
system should be free of difficulties caused by conventions local to a given region.

6) Finally, the system should handle the same kinds and amounts of data that are already handled by
existing chess software and by print media.

2.3: A sample PGN game

Although its description may seem rather lengthy, PGN is actually fairly simple. A
sample PGN game follows; it has most of the important features described in later sections of this
document.

[Event “F/S Return Match”]

[Site “Belgrade, Serbia JUG”]
[Date “1992.11.04”]
[Round “29”]
[White “Fischer, Robert J.”]
[Black “Spassky, Boris V.”]
[Result “1/2-1/2”]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3

O-O 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. c4 c6 12. cxb5 axb5 13. Nc3 Bb7 14. Bg5 b4 15.
Nb1 h6 16. Bh4 c5 17. dxe5 Nxe4 18. Bxe7 Qxe7 19. exd6 Qf6 20. Nbd2 Nxd6 21.
Nc4 Nxc4 22. Bxc4 Nb6 23. Ne5 Rae8 24. Bxf7+ Rxf7 25. Nxf7 Rxe1+ 26. Qxe1 Kxf7
27. Qe3 Qg5 28. Qxg5 hxg5 29. b3 Ke6 30. a3 Kd6 31. axb4 cxb4 32. Ra5 Nd5 33.
f3 Bc8 34. Kf2 Bf5 35. Ra7 g6 36. Ra6+ Kc5 37. Ke1 Nf4 38. g3 Nxh3 39. Kd2 Kb5
40. Rd6 Kc5 41. Ra6 Nf2 42. g4 Bd3 43. Re6 1/2-1/2

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3: Formats: import and export

There are two formats in the PGN specification. These are the “import” format and the
“export” format. These are the two different ways of formatting the same PGN data according to its
source. The details of the two formats are described throughout the following sections of this
document.

Other than formats, there is the additional topic of PGN presentation. While both PGN import
and export formats are designed to be readable by humans, there is no recommendation that either of
these be an ultimate mode of chess data presentation. Rather, software developers are urged to
consider all of the various techniques at their disposal to enhance the display of chess data at the
presentation level (i.e., highest level) of their programs. This means that the use of different fonts,
character sizes, color, and other tools of computer aided interaction and publishing should be explored
to provide a high quality presentation appropriate to the function of the particular program.

3.1: Import format allows for manually prepared

data

The import format is rather flexible and is used to describe data that may have been prepared
by hand, much like a source file for a high level programming language. A program that can read PGN
data should be able to handle the somewhat lax import format.

3.2: Export format used for program generated

output

The export format is rather strict and is used to describe data that is usually prepared under
program control, something like a pretty printed source program reformatted by a compiler.

3.2.1: Byte equivalence

For a given PGN data file, export format representations generated by different PGN
programs on the same computing system should be exactly equivalent, byte for byte.

13
3.2.2: Archival storage and the newline character

Export format should also be used for archival storage. Here, “archival” storage is defined as
storage that may be accessed by a variety of computing systems. The only extra requirement for
archival storage is that the newline character have a specific representation that is independent of its
value for a particular computing system’s text file usage. The archival representation of a newline is
the ASCII control character LF (line feed, decimal value 10, hexadecimal value 0x0a).

Sadly, there are some accidents of history that survive to this day that have baroque
representations for a newline: multicharacter sequences, end-of-line record markers, start-of-line byte
counts, fixed length records, and so forth. It is well beyond the scope of the PGN project to reconcile
all of these to the unified world of ANSI C and the those enjoying the bliss of a single ‘\n’ convention.
Some systems may just not be able to handle an archival PGN text file with native text editors. In these
cases, an indulgence of sorts is granted to use the local newline convention in non-archival PGN files
for those text editors.

3.2.3: Speed of processing

Several parts of the export format deal with exact descriptions of line and field justification
that are absent from the import format details. The main reason for these restrictions on the export
format are to allow the construction of simple data translation programs that can easily scan PGN data
without having to have a full chess engine or other complex parsing routines. The idea is to encourage
chess software authors to always allow for at least a limited PGN reading capability. Even when a full
chess engine parsing capability is available, it is likely to be at least two orders of magnitude slower
than a simple text scanner.

3.2.4: Reduced export format

A PGN game represented using export format is said to be in “reduced export format” if all of
the following hold: 1) it has no commentary, 2) it has only the standard seven tag roster identification
information (“STR”, see below), 3) it has no recursive annotation variations (“RAV”, see below), and
4) it has no numeric annotation glyphs (“NAG”, see below). Reduced export format is used for bulk
storage of unannotated games. It represents a minimum level of standard conformance for a PGN
exporting application.

14
4: Lexicographical issues

PGN data is composed of characters; non-overlapping contiguous sequences of characters

form lexical tokens.

4.1: Character codes

PGN data is represented using a subset of the eight bit ISO 8859/1 (Latin 1) character set.
(“ISO” is an acronym for the International Standards Organization.) This set is also known as ECMA-
94 and is similar to other ISO Latin character sets. ISO 8859/1 includes the standard seven bit ASCII
character set for the 32 control character code values from zero to 31. The 95 printing character code
values from 32 to 126 are also equivalent to seven bit ASCII usage. (Code value 127, the ASCII DEL
control character, is a graphic character in ISO 8859/1; it is not used for PGN data representation.)

The 32 ISO 8859/1 code values from 128 to 159 are non-printing control characters. They are
not used for PGN data representation. The 32 code values from 160 to 191 are mostly non-alphabetic
printing characters and their use for PGN data is discouraged as their graphic representation varies
considerably among other ISO Latin sets. Finally, the 64 code values from 192 to 255 are mostly
alphabetic printing characters with various diacritical marks; their use is encouraged for those
languages that require such characters. The graphic representations of this last set of 64 characters is
fairly constant for the ISO Latin family.

Printing character codes outside of the seven bit ASCII range may only appear in string data
and in commentary. They are not permitted for use in symbol construction.

Because some PGN users’ environments may not support presentation of non-ASCII
characters, PGN game authors should refrain from using such characters in critical commentary or
string values in game data that may be referenced in such environments. PGN software authors should
have their programs handle such environments by displaying a question mark (“?”) for non-ASCII
character codes. This is an important point because there are many computing systems that can display
eight bit character data, but the display graphics may differ among machines and operating systems
from different manufacturers.

Only four of the ASCII control characters are permitted in PGN import format; these are the
horizontal and vertical tabs along with the linefeed and carriage return codes.

The external representation of the newline character may differ among platforms; this is an
acceptable variation as long as the details of the implementation are hidden from software

15
 implementors and users. When a choice is practical, the Unix “newline is linefeed” convention is
preferred.

4.2: Tab characters

Tab characters, both horizontal and vertical, are not permitted in the export format. This is
because the treatment of tab characters is highly dependent upon the particular software in use on the
host computing system. Also, tab characters may not appear inside of string data.

4.3: Line lengths

PGN data are organized as simple text lines without any special bytes or markers for
secondary record structure imposed by specific operating systems. Import format PGN text lines are
limited to having a maximum of 255 characters per line including the newline character. Lines with 80
or more printing characters are strongly discouraged because of the difficulties experienced by common
text editors with long lines.

In some cases, very long tag values will require 80 or more columns, but these are relatively
rare. An example of this is the “FEN” tag pair; it may have a long tag value, but this particular tag pair
is only used to represent a game that doesn’t start from the usual initial position.

16
5: Commentary

Comment text may appear in PGN data. There are two kinds of comments. The first kind is
the “rest of line” comment; this comment type starts with a semicolon character and continues to the
end of the line. The second kind starts with a left brace character and continues to the next right brace
character. Comments cannot appear inside any token.

Brace comments do not nest; a left brace character appearing in a brace comment loses its
special meaning and is ignored. A semicolon appearing inside of a brace comment loses its special
meaning and is ignored. Braces appearing inside of a semicolon comments lose their special meaning
and are ignored.

*** Export format representation of comments needs definition work.

17
18
6: Escape mechanism

There is a special escape mechanism for PGN data. This mechanism is triggered by a percent
sign character (“%”) appearing in the first column of a line; the data on the rest of the line is ignored by
publicly available PGN scanning software. This escape convention is intended for the private use of
software developers and researchers to embed non-PGN commands and data in PGN streams.

A percent sign appearing in any other place other than the first position in a line does not
trigger the escape mechanism.

19
20
7: Tokens

PGN character data is organized as tokens. A token is a contiguous sequence of characters

that represents a basic semantic unit. Tokens may be separated from adjacent tokens by white space
characters. (White space characters include space, newline, and tab characters.) Some tokens are self
delimiting and do not require white space characters.

A string token is a sequence of zero or more printing characters delimited by a pair of quote
characters (ASCII decimal value 34, hexadecimal value 0x22). An empty string is represented by two
adjacent quotes. (Note: an apostrophe is not a quote.) A quote inside a string is represented by the
backslash immediately followed by a quote. A backslash inside a string is represented by two adjacent
backslashes. Strings are commonly used as tag pair values (see below). Non-printing characters like
newline and tab are not permitted inside of strings. A string token is terminated by its closing quote.
Currently, a string is limited to a maximum of 255 characters of data.

An integer token is a sequence of one or more decimal digit characters. It is a special case of
the more general “symbol” token class described below. Integer tokens are used to help represent
move number indications (see below). An integer token is terminated just prior to the first non-symbol
character following the integer digit sequence.

A period character (“.”) is a token by itself. It is used for move number indications (see
below). It is self terminating.

An asterisk character (“*”) is a token by itself. It is used as one of the possible game
termination markers (see below); it indicates an incomplete game or a game with an unknown or
otherwise unavailable result. It is self terminating.

The left and right bracket characters (“[” and “]”) are tokens. They are used to delimit tag
pairs (see below). Both are self terminating.

The left and right parenthesis characters (“(“ and “)”) are tokens. They are used to delimit
Recursive Annotation Variations (see below). Both are self terminating.

The left and right angle bracket characters (“<” and “>”) are tokens. They are reserved for
future expansion. Both are self terminating.

A Numeric Annotation Glyph (“NAG”, see below) is a token; it is composed of a dollar sign
character (“$”) immediately followed by one or more digit characters. It is terminated just prior to the
first non-digit character following the digit sequence.

21
 A symbol token starts with a letter or digit character and is immediately followed by a
sequence of zero or more symbol continuation characters. These continuation characters are letter
characters (“A-Za-z”), digit characters (“0-9”), the underscore (“_”), the plus sign (“+”), the octothorpe
sign (“#”), the equal sign (“=”), the colon (“:”), and the hyphen (“-“). Symbols are used for a variety
of purposes. All characters in a symbol are significant. A symbol token is terminated just prior to the
first non-symbol character following the symbol character sequence. Currently, a symbol is limited to a
maximum of 255 characters in length.

22
8: Parsing games

A PGN database file is a sequential collection of zero or more PGN games. An empty file is a
valid, although somewhat uninformative, PGN database.

A PGN game is composed of two sections. The first is the tag pair section and the second is
the movetext section. The tag pair section provides information that identifies the game by defining the
values associated with a set of standard parameters. The movetext section gives the usually enumerated
and possibly annotated moves of the game along with the concluding game termination marker. The
chess moves themselves are represented using SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation), also described later
in this document.

8.1: Tag pair section

The tag pair section is composed of a series of zero or more tag pairs.

A tag pair is composed of four consecutive tokens: a left bracket token, a symbol token, a
string token, and a right bracket token. The symbol token is the tag name and the string token is the tag
value associated with the tag name. (There is a standard set of tag names and semantics described
below.) The same tag name should not appear more than once in a tag pair section.

A further restriction on tag names is that they are composed exclusively of letters, digits, and
the underscore character. This is done to facilitate mapping of tag names into key and attribute names
for use with general purpose database programs.

For PGN import format, there may be zero or more white space characters between any
adjacent pair of tokens in a tag pair.

For PGN export format, there are no white space characters between the left bracket and the
tag name, there are no white space characters between the tag value and the right bracket, and there is a
single space character between the tag name and the tag value.

Tag names, like all symbols, are case sensitive. All tag names used for archival storage begin
with an upper case letter.

PGN import format may have multiple tag pairs on the same line and may even have a tag pair
spanning more than a single line. Export format requires each tag pair to appear left justified on a line
by itself; a single empty line follows the last tag pair.

Some tag values may be composed of a sequence of items. For example, a consultation game
may have more than one player for a given side. When this occurs, the single character “:” (colon)

23
 appears between adjacent items. Because of this use as an internal separator in strings, the colon
should not otherwise appear in a string.

The tag pair format is designed for expansion; initially only strings are allowed as tag pair
values. Tag value formats associated with the STR (Seven Tag Roster, see below) will not change;
they will always be string values. However, there are long term plans to allow general list structures as
tag values for non-STR tag pairs. Use of these expanded tag values will likely be restricted to special
research programs. In all events, the top level structure of a tag pair remains the same: left bracket, tag
name, tag value, and right bracket.

8.1.1: Seven Tag Roster

There is a set of tags defined for mandatory use for archival storage of PGN data. This is the
STR (Seven Tag Roster). The interpretation of these tags is fixed as is the order in which they appear.
Although the definition and use of additional tag names and semantics is permitted and encouraged
when needed, the STR is the common ground that all programs should follow for public data
interchange.

For import format, the order of tag pairs is not important. For export format, the STR tag
pairs appear before any other tag pairs. (The STR tag pairs must also appear in order; this order is
described below). Also for export format, any additional tag pairs appear in ASCII order by tag name.

The seven tag names of the STR are (in order):

1) Event (the name of the tournament or match event)

2) Site (the location of the event)

3) Date (the starting date of the game)

4) Round (the playing round ordinal of the game)

5) White (the player of the white pieces)

6) Black (the player of the black pieces)

7) Result (the result of the game)

A set of supplemental tag names is given later in this document.

For PGN export format, a single blank line appears after the last of the tag pairs to conclude
the tag pair section. This helps simple scanning programs to quickly determine the end of the tag pair
section and the beginning of the movetext section.

24
8.1.1.1: The Event tag

The Event tag value should be reasonably descriptive. Abbreviations are to be avoided unless
absolutely necessary. A consistent event naming should be used to help facilitate database scanning. If
the name of the event is unknown, a single question mark should appear as the tag value.

Examples:

[Event “FIDE World Championship”]

[Event “Moscow City Championship”]
[Event “ACM North American Computer Championship”]
[Event “Casual Game”]

8.1.1.2: The Site tag

The Site tag value should include city and region names along with a standard name for the
country. The use of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) three letter names is suggested for
those countries where such codes are available. If the site of the event is unknown, a single question
mark should appear as the tag value. A comma may be used to separate a city from a region. No
comma is needed to separate a city or region from the IOC country code. A later section of this
document gives a list of three letter nation codes along with a few additions for “locations” not covered
by the IOC.

Examples:

[Site “New York City, NY USA”]

[Site “St. Petersburg RUS”]
[Site “Riga LAT”]

8.1.1.3: The Date tag

The Date tag value gives the starting date for the game. (Note: this is not necessarily the same
as the starting date for the event.) The date is given with respect to the local time of the site given in
the Event tag. The Date tag value field always uses a standard ten character format:
“YYYY.MM.DD”. The first four characters are digits that give the year, the next character is a period,
the next two characters are digits that give the month, the next character is a period, and the final two
characters are digits that give the day of the month. If the any of the digit fields are not known, then
question marks are used in place of the digits.

Examples:

[Date “1992.08.31”]
[Date “1993.??.??”]
[Date “2001.01.01”]

25
8.1.1.4: The Round tag

The Round tag value gives the playing round for the game. In a match competition, this value
is the number of the game played. If the use of a round number is inappropriate, then the field should
be a single hyphen character. If the round is unknown, a single question mark should appear as the tag
value.

Some organizers employ unusual round designations and have multipart playing rounds and
sometimes even have conditional rounds. In these cases, a multipart round identifier can be made from
a sequence of integer round numbers separated by periods. The leftmost integer represents the most
significant round and succeeding integers represent round numbers in descending hierarchical order.

Examples:

[Round “1”]
[Round “3.1”]
[Round “4.1.2”]

8.1.1.5: The White tag

The White tag value is the name of the player or players of the white pieces. The names are
given as they would appear in a telephone directory. The family or last name appears first. If a first
name or first initial is available, it is separated from the family name by a comma and a space. Finally,
one or more middle initials may appear. (Wherever a comma appears, the very next character should
be a space. Wherever an initial appears, the very next character should be a period.) If the name is
unknown, a single question mark should appear as the tag value.

The intent is to allow meaningful ASCII sorting of the tag value that is independent of
regional name formation customs. If more than one person is playing the white pieces, the names are
listed in alphabetical order and are separated by the colon character between adjacent entries. A player
who is also a computer program should have appropriate version information listed after the name of
the program.

The format used in the FIDE Rating Lists is appropriate for use for player name tags.

Examples:

[White “Tal, Mikhail N.”]

[White “van der Wiel, Johan”]
[White “Acme Pawngrabber v.3.2”]
[White “Fine, R.”]

26
8.1.1.6: The Black tag

The Black tag value is the name of the player or players of the black pieces.

The names are given here as they are for the White tag value.

Examples:

[Black ‘‘Lasker, Emmanuel’’]

[Black ‘‘Smyslov, Vasily V.’’]
[Black ‘‘Smith, John Q.:Woodpusher 2000’’]
[Black ‘‘Morphy’’]

8.1.1.7: The Result tag

The Result field value is the result of the game. It is always exactly the same as the game
termination marker that concludes the associated movetext. It is always one of four possible values: “1-
0” (White wins), “0-1” (Black wins), “1/2-1/2” (drawn game), and “*” (game still in progress, game
abandoned, or result otherwise unknown). Note that the digit zero is used in both of the first two cases;
not the letter “O”.

All possible examples:

[Result ‘‘0-1” ]
[Result ‘‘1-0” ]
[Result ‘‘1/2-1/2” ]
[Result ‘‘*’’]

8.2: Movetext section

The movetext section is composed of chess moves, move number indications, optional
annotations, and a single concluding game termination marker.

Because illegal moves are not real chess moves, they are not permitted in PGN movetext.
They may appear in commentary, however. One would hope that illegal moves are relatively rare in
games worthy of recording.

8.2.1: Movetext line justification

In PGN import format, tokens in the movetext do not require any specific line justification.

In PGN export format, tokens in the movetext are placed left justified on successive text lines
each of which has less than 80 printing characters. As many tokens as possible are placed on a line
with the remainder appearing on successive lines. A single space character appears between any two

27
 adjacent symbol tokens on the same line in the movetext. As with the tag pair section, a single empty
line follows the last line of data to conclude the movetext section.

Neither the first or the last character on an export format PGN line is a space. (This may
change in the case of commentary; this area is currently under development.)

8.2.2: Movetext move number indications

A move number indication is composed of one or more adjacent digits (an integer token)
followed by zero or more periods. The integer portion of the indication gives the move number of the
immediately following white move (if present) and also the immediately following black move (if
present).

8.2.2.1: Import format move number indications

PGN import format does not require move number indications. It does not prohibit
superfluous move number indications anywhere in the movetext as long as the move numbers are
correct.

PGN import format move number indications may have zero or more period characters
following the digit sequence that gives the move number; one or more white space characters may
appear between the digit sequence and the period(s).

8.2.2.2: Export format move number indications

There are two export format move number indication formats, one for use appearing
immediately before a white move element and one for use appearing immediately before a black move
element. A white move number indication is formed from the integer giving the fullmove number with
a single period character appended. A black move number indication is formed from the integer giving
the fullmove number with three period characters appended.

All white move elements have a preceding move number indication. A black move element
has a preceding move number indication only in two cases: first, if there is intervening annotation or
commentary between the black move and the previous white move; and second, if there is no previous
white move in the special case where a game starts from a position where Black is the active player.

There are no other cases where move number indications appear in PGN export format.

28
8.2.3: Movetext SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation)

SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation) is a representation standard for chess moves using the
ASCII Latin alphabet.

Examples of SAN recorded games are found throughout most modern chess publications.
SAN as presented in this document uses English language single character abbreviations for chess
pieces, although this is easily changed in the source. English is chosen over other languages because it
appears to be the most widely recognized.

An alternative to SAN is FAN (Figurine Algebraic Notation). FAN uses miniature piece icons
instead of single letter piece abbreviations. The two notations are otherwise identical.

8.2.3.1: Square identification

SAN identifies each of the sixty four squares on the chessboard with a unique two character
name. The first character of a square identifier is the file of the square; a file is a column of eight
squares designated by a single lower case letter from “a” (leftmost or queenside) up to and including
“h” (rightmost or kingside). The second character of a square identifier is the rank of the square; a rank
is a row of eight squares designated by a single digit from “1” (bottom side [White’s first rank]) up to
and including “8” (top side [Black’s first rank]). The initial squares of some pieces are: white queen
rook at a1, white king at e1, black queen knight pawn at b7, and black king rook at h8.

8.2.3.2: Piece identification

SAN identifies each piece by a single upper case letter. The standard English values: pawn =
“P”, knight = “N”, bishop = “B”, rook = “R”, queen = “Q”, and king = “K”.

The letter code for a pawn is not used for SAN moves in PGN export format movetext.
However, some PGN import software disambiguation code may allow for the appearance of pawn letter
codes. Also, pawn and other piece letter codes are needed for use in some tag pair and annotation
constructs.

It is admittedly a bit chauvinistic to select English piece letters over those from other
languages. There is a slight justification in that English is a de facto universal second language among
most chessplayers and program users. It is probably the best that can be done for now. A later section
of this document gives alternative piece letters, but these should be used only for local presentation
software and not for archival storage or for dynamic interchange among programs.

29
8.2.3.3: Basic SAN move construction

A basic SAN move is given by listing the moving piece letter (omitted for pawns) followed by
the destination square. Capture moves are denoted by the lower case letter “x” immediately prior to the
destination square; pawn captures include the file letter of the originating square of the capturing pawn
immediately prior to the “x” character.

SAN kingside castling is indicated by the sequence “O-O”; queenside castling is indicated by
the sequence “O-O-O”. Note that the upper case letter “O” is used, not the digit zero. The use of a
zero character is not only incompatible with traditional text practices, but it can also confuse parsing
algorithms which also have to understand about move numbers and game termination markers. Also
note that the use of the letter “O” is consistent with the practice of having all chess move symbols start
with a letter; also, it follows the convention that all non-pwn move symbols start with an upper case
letter.

En passant captures do not have any special notation; they are formed as if the captured pawn
were on the capturing pawn’s destination square. Pawn promotions are denoted by the equal sign “=”
immediately following the destination square with a promoted piece letter (indicating one of knight,
bishop, rook, or queen) immediately following the equal sign. As above, the piece letter is in upper
case.

8.2.3.4: Disambiguation

In the case of ambiguities (multiple pieces of the same type moving to the same square), the
first appropriate disambiguating step of the three following steps is taken:

First, if the moving pieces can be distinguished by their originating files, the originating file
letter of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the moving piece letter.

Second (when the first step fails), if the moving pieces can be distinguished by their
originating ranks, the originating rank digit of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the
moving piece letter.

Third (when both the first and the second steps fail), the two character square coordinate of
the originating square of the moving piece is inserted immediately after the moving piece letter.

Note that the above disambiguation is needed only to distinguish among moves of the same
piece type to the same square; it is not used to distinguish among attacks of the same piece type to the
same square. An example of this would be a position with two white knights, one on square c3 and one
on square g1 and a vacant square e2 with White to move. Both knights attack square e2, and if both
could legally move there, then a file disambiguation is needed; the (nonchecking) knight moves would

30
 be “Nce2” and “Nge2”. However, if the white king were at square e1 and a black bishop were at
square b4 with a vacant square d2 (thus an absolute pin of the white knight at square c3), then only one
white knight (the one at square g1) could move to square e2: “Ne2”.

8.2.3.5: Check and checkmate indication characters

If the move is a checking move, the plus sign “+” is appended as a suffix to the basic SAN
move notation; if the move is a checkmating move, the octothorpe sign “#” is appended instead.

Neither the appearance nor the absence of either a check or checkmating indicator is used for
disambiguation purposes. This means that if two (or more) pieces of the same type can move to the
same square the differences in checking status of the moves does not allieviate the need for the standard
rank and file disabiguation described above. (Note that a difference in checking status for the above
may occur only in the case of a discovered check.)

Neither the checking or checkmating indicators are considered annotation as they do not
communicate subjective information. Therefore, they are qualitatively different from move suffix
annotations like “!” and “?”. Subjective move annotations are handled using Numeric Annotation
Glyphs as described in a later section of this document.

There are no special markings used for double checks or discovered checks.

There are no special markings used for drawing moves.

8.2.3.6: SAN move length

SAN moves can be as short as two characters (e.g., “d4”), or as long as seven characters (e.g.,
“Qa6xb7#”, “fxg1=Q+”). The average SAN move length seen in realistic games is probably just
fractionally longer than three characters. If the SAN rules seem complicated, be assured that the earlier
notation systems of LEN (Long English Notation) and EDN (English Descriptive Notation) are much
more complex, and that LAN (Long Algebraic Notation, the predecessor of SAN) is unnecessarily
bulky.

8.2.3.7: Import and export SAN

PGN export format always uses the above canonical SAN to represent moves in the movetext
section of a PGN game. Import format is somewhat more relaxed and it makes allowances for moves
that do not conform exactly to the canonical format. However, these allowances may differ among
different PGN reader programs. Only data appearing in export format is in all cases guaranteed to be
importable into all PGN readers.

31
 There are a number of suggested guidelines for use with implementing PGN reader software
for permitting non-canonical SAN move representation. The idea is to have a PGN reader apply
various transformations to attempt to discover the move that is represented by non-canonical input.
Some suggested transformations include: letter case remapping, capture indicator insertion, check
indicator insertion, and checkmate indicator insertion.

8.2.3.8: SAN move suffix annotations

Import format PGN allows for the use of traditional suffix annotations for moves. There are
exactly six such annotations available: “!”, “?”, “!!”, “!?”, “?!”, and “??”. At most one such suffix
annotation may appear per move, and if present, it is always the last part of the move symbol.

When exported, a move suffix annotation is translated into the corresponding Numeric
Annotation Glyph as described in a later section of this document. For example, if the single move
symbol “Qxa8?” appears in an import format PGN movetext, it would be replaced with the two
adjacent symbols “Qxa8 $2”.

8.2.4: Movetext NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyph)

An NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyph) is a movetext element that is used to indicate a simple
annotation in a language independent manner. An NAG is formed from a dollar sign (“$”) with a non-
negative decimal integer suffix. The non-negative integer must be from zero to 255 in value.

8.2.5: Movetext RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation)

An RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation) is a sequence of movetext containing one or more

moves enclosed in parentheses. An RAV is used to represent an alternative variation. The alternate
move sequence given by an RAV is one that may be legally played by first unplaying the move that
appears immediately prior to the RAV. Because the RAV is a recursive construct, it may be nested.

*** The specification for import/export representation of RAV elements needs further
development.

8.2.6: Game Termination Markers

Each movetext section has exactly one game termination marker; the marker always occurs as
the last element in the movetext. The game termination marker is a symbol that is one of the following
four values: “1-0” (White wins), “0-1” (Black wins), “1/2-1/2” (drawn game), and “*” (game in
progress, result unknown, or game abandoned). Note that the digit zero is used in the above; not the
32
upper case letter “O”. The game termination marker appearing in the movetext of a game must match
the value of the game’s Result tag pair. (While the marker appears as a string in the Result tag, it
appears as a symbol without quotes in the movetext.)

33
34
9: Supplemental tag names

The following tag names and their associated semantics are recommended for use for
information not contained in the Seven Tag Roster.

9.1: Player related information

Note that if there is more than one player field in an instance of a player (White or Black) tag,
then there will be corresponding multiple fields in any of the following tags. For example, if the White
tag has the three field value “Jones:Smith:Zacharias” (a consultation game), then the WhiteTitle tag
could have a value of “IM:-:GM” if Jones was an International Master, Smith was untitled, and
Zacharias was a Grandmaster.

9.1.1: Tags: WhiteTitle, BlackTitle

These use string values such as “FM”, “IM”, and “GM”; these tags are used only for the
standard abbreviations for FIDE titles. A value of “-“ is used for an untitled player.

9.1.2: Tags: WhiteElo, BlackElo

These tags use integer values; these are used for FIDE Elo ratings. A value of “-“ is used for
an unrated player.

9.1.3: Tags: WhiteUSCF, BlackUSCF

These tags use integer values; these are used for USCF (United States Chess Federation)
ratings. Similar tag names can be constructed for other rating agencies.

9.1.4: Tags: WhiteNA, BlackNA

These tags use string values; these are the e-mail or network addresses of the players. A value
of “-“ is used for a player without an electronic address.

35
9.1.5: Tags: WhiteType, BlackType

These tags use string values; these describe the player types. The value “human” should be
used for a person while the value “program” should be used for algorithmic (computer) players.

9.2: Event related information

The following tags are used for providing additional information about the event.

9.2.1: Tag: EventDate

This uses a date value, similar to the Date tag field, that gives the starting date of the Event.

9.2.2: Tag: EventSponsor

This uses a string value giving the name of the sponsor of the event.

9.2.3: Tag: Section

This uses a string; this is used for the playing section of a tournament (e.g., “Open” or
“Reserve”).

9.2.4: Tag: Stage

This uses a string; this is used for the stage of a multistage event (e.g., “Preliminary” or
“Semifinal”).

9.2.5: Tag: Board

This uses an integer; this identifies the board number in a team event and also in a
simultaneous exhibition.

9.3: Opening information (locale specific)

The following tag pairs are used for traditional opening names. The associated tag values will
vary according to the local language in use.

36
9.3.1: Tag: Opening

This uses a string; this is used for the traditional opening name. This will vary by locale. This
tag pair is associated with the use of the EPD opcode “v0” described in a later section of this document.

9.3.2: Tag: Variation

This uses a string; this is used to further refine the Opening tag. This will vary by locale. This
tag pair is associated with the use of the EPD opcode “v1” described in a later section of this document.

9.3.3: Tag: SubVariation

This uses a string; this is used to further refine the Variation tag. This will vary by locale.
This tag pair is associated with the use of the EPD opcode “v2” described in a later section of this
document.

9.4: Opening information (third party vendors)

The following tag pairs are used for representing opening identification according to various
third party vendors and organizations. References to these organizations does not imply any
endorsement of them or any endorsement by them.

9.4.1: Tag: ECO

This uses a string of either the form “XDD” or the form “XDD/DD” where the “X” is a letter
from “A” to “E” and the “D” positions are digits; this is used for an opening designation from the five
volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. This tag pair is associated with the use of the EPD opcode
“eco” described in a later section of this document.

9.4.2: Tag: NIC

This uses a string; this is used for an opening designation from the New in Chess database.
This tag pair is associated with the use of the EPD opcode “nic” described in a later section of this
document.

37
9.5: Time and date related information

The following tags assist with further refinement of the time and data information associated
with a game.

9.5.1: Tag: Time

This uses a time-of-day value in the form “HH:MM:SS”; similar to the Date tag except that it
denotes the local clock time (hours, minutes, and seconds) of the start of the game. Note that colons,
not periods, are used for field separators for the Time tag value. The value is taken from the local time
corresponding to the location given in the Site tag pair.

9.5.2: Tag: UTCTime

This tag is similar to the Time tag except that the time is given according to the Universal
Coordinated Time standard.

9.5.3: Tag: UTCDate

This tag is similar to the Date tag except that the date is given according to the Universal
Coordinated Time standard.

9.6: Time control

The follwing tag is used to help describe the time control used with the game.

9.6.1: Tag: TimeControl

This uses a list of one or more time control fields. Each field contains a descriptor for each
time control period; if more than one descriptor is present then they are separated by the colon
character (“:”). The descriptors appear in the order in which they are used in the game. The last field
appearing is considered to be implicitly repeated for further control periods as needed.

There are six kinds of TimeControl fields.

The first kind is a single question mark (“?”) which means that the time control mode is
unknown. When used, it is usually the only descriptor present.

38
 The second kind is a single hyphen (“-“) which means that there was no time control mode in
use. When used, it is usually the only descriptor present.

The third Time control field kind is formed as two positive integers separated by a solidus
(“/”) character. The first integer is the number of moves in the period and the second is the number of
seconds in the period. Thus, a time control period of 40 moves in 2 1/2 hours would be represented as
“40/9000”.

The fourth TimeControl field kind is used for a “sudden death” control period. It should only
be used for the last descriptor in a TimeControl tag value. It is sometimes the only descriptor present.
The format consists of a single integer that gives the number of seconds in the period. Thus, a blitz
game would be represented with a TimeControl tag value of “300”.

The fifth TimeControl field kind is used for an “incremental” control period. It should only be
used for the last descriptor in a TimeControl tag value and is usually the only descriptor in the value.
The format consists of two positive integers separated by a plus sign (“+”) character. The first integer
gives the minimum number of seconds allocated for the period and the second integer gives the number
of extra seconds added after each move is made. So, an incremental time control of 90 minutes plus
one extra minute per move would be given by “4500+60” in the TimeControl tag value.

The sixth TimeControl field kind is used for a “sandclock” or “hourglass” control period. It
should only be used for the last descriptor in a TimeControl tag value and is usually the only descriptor
in the value. The format consists of an asterisk (“*”) immediately followed by a positive integer. The
integer gives the total number of seconds in the sandclock period. The time control is implemented as
if a sandclock were set at the start of the period with an equal amount of sand in each of the two
chambers and the players invert the sandclock after each move with a time forfeit indicated by an
empty upper chamber. Electronic implementation of a physical sandclock may be used. An example
sandclock specification for a common three minute egg timer sandclock would have a tag value of
“*180”.

Additional TimeControl field kinds will be defined as necessary.

9.7: Alternative starting positions

There are two tags defined for assistance with describing games that did not start from the
usual initial array.

39
9.7.1: Tag: SetUp

This tag takes an integer that denotes the “set-up” status of the game. A value of “0” indicates
that the game has started from the usual initial array. A value of “1” indicates that the game started
from a set-up position; this position is given in the “FEN” tag pair. This tag must appear for a game
starting with a set-up position. If it appears with a tag value of “1”, a FEN tag pair must also appear.

9.7.2: Tag: FEN

This tag uses a string that gives the Forsyth-Edwards Notation for the starting position used in
the game. FEN is described in a later section of this document. If a SetUp tag appears with a tag value
of “1”, the FEN tag pair is also required.

9.8: Game conclusion

There is a single tag that discusses the conclusion of the game.

9.8.1: Tag: Termination

This takes a string that describes the reason for the conclusion of the game. While the Result
tag gives the result of the game, it does not provide any extra information and so the Termination tag is
defined for this purpose.

Strings that may appear as Termination tag values:

* “abandoned”: abandoned game.

* “adjudication”: result due to third party adjudication process.

* “death”: losing player called to greater things, one hopes.

* “emergency”: game concluded due to unforeseen circumstances.

* “normal”: game terminated in a normal fashion.

* “rules infraction”: administrative forfeit due to losing player’s failure to observe either the
Laws of Chess or the event regulations.

* “time forfeit”: loss due to losing player’s failure to meet time control requirements.

* “unterminated”: game not terminated.

40
9.9: Miscellaneous

These are tags that can be briefly described and that doon’t fit well inother sections.

9.9.1: Tag: Annotator

This tag uses a name or names in the format of the player name tags; this identifies the
annotator or annotators of the game.

9.9.2: Tag: Mode

This uses a string that gives the playing mode of the game. Examples: “OTB” (over the
board), “PM” (paper mail), “EM” (electronic mail), “ICS” (Internet Chess Server), and “TC” (general
telecommunication).

9.9.3: Tag: PlyCount

This tag takes a single integer that gives the number of ply (moves) in the game.

41
42
10: Numeric Annotation Glyphs

NAG zero is used for a null annotation; it is provided for the convenience of software
designers as a placeholder value and should probably not be used in external PGN data.

NAGs with values from 1 to 9 annotate the move just played.

NAGs with values from 10 to 135 modify the current position.

NAGs with values from 136 to 139 describe time pressure.

Other NAG values are reserved for future definition.

Note: the number assignments listed below should be considered preliminary in nature; they
are likely to be changed as a result of reviewer feedback.

NAG Interpretation

--- --------------

0 Null annotation
1 Good move (traditional “!”)
2 Poor move (traditional “?”)
3 Very good move (traditional “!!”)
4 Very poor move (traditional “??”)
5 Speculative move (traditional “!?”)
6 Questionable move (traditional “?!”)
7 Forced move (all others lose quickly)
8 Singular move (no reasonable alternatives)
9 Worst move
10 Drawish position
11 Equal chances, quiet position
12 Equal chances, active position
13 Unclear position
14 White has a slight advantage
15 Black has a slight advantage
16 White has a moderate advantage
17 Black has a moderate advantage
18 White has a decisive advantage
19 Black has a decisive advantage
20 White has a crushing advantage (Black should resign)
21 Black has a crushing advantage (White should resign)
22 White is in zugzwang
23 Black is in zugzwang
24 White has a slight space advantage
25 Black has a slight space advantage
26 White has a moderate space advantage
27 Black has a moderate space advantage
28 White has a decisive space advantage
29 Black has a decisive space advantage
30 White has a slight time (development) advantage

43
 31 Black has a slight time (development) advantage
32 White has a moderate time (development) advantage
33 Black has a moderate time (development) advantage
34 White has a decisive time (development) advantage
35 Black has a decisive time (development) advantage
36 White has the initiative
37 Black has the initiative
38 White has a lasting initiative
39 Black has a lasting initiative
40 White has the attack
41 Black has the attack
42 White has insufficient compensation for material deficit
43 Black has insufficient compensation for material deficit
44 White has sufficient compensation for material deficit
45 Black has sufficient compensation for material deficit
46 White has more than adequate compensation for material deficit
47 Black has more than adequate compensation for material deficit
48 White has a slight center control advantage
49 Black has a slight center control advantage
50 White has a moderate center control advantage
51 Black has a moderate center control advantage
52 White has a decisive center control advantage
53 Black has a decisive center control advantage
54 White has a slight kingside control advantage
55 Black has a slight kingside control advantage
56 White has a moderate kingside control advantage
57 Black has a moderate kingside control advantage
58 White has a decisive kingside control advantage
59 Black has a decisive kingside control advantage
60 White has a slight queenside control advantage
61 Black has a slight queenside control advantage
62 White has a moderate queenside control advantage
63 Black has a moderate queenside control advantage
64 White has a decisive queenside control advantage
65 Black has a decisive queenside control advantage
66 White has a vulnerable first rank
67 Black has a vulnerable first rank
68 White has a well protected first rank
69 Black has a well protected first rank
70 White has a poorly protected king
71 Black has a poorly protected king
72 White has a well protected king
73 Black has a well protected king
74 White has a poorly placed king
75 Black has a poorly placed king
76 White has a well placed king
77 Black has a well placed king
78 White has a very weak pawn structure
79 Black has a very weak pawn structure
80 White has a moderately weak pawn structure
81 Black has a moderately weak pawn structure
82 White has a moderately strong pawn structure
83 Black has a moderately strong pawn structure
84 White has a very strong pawn structure
85 Black has a very strong pawn structure
44
86 White has poor knight placement
87 Black has poor knight placement
88 White has good knight placement
89 Black has good knight placement
90 White has poor bishop placement
91 Black has poor bishop placement
92 White has good bishop placement
93 Black has good bishop placement
84 White has poor rook placement
85 Black has poor rook placement
86 White has good rook placement
87 Black has good rook placement
98 White has poor queen placement
99 Black has poor queen placement
100 White has good queen placement
101 Black has good queen placement
102 White has poor piece coordination
103 Black has poor piece coordination
104 White has good piece coordination
105 Black has good piece coordination
106 White has played the opening very poorly
107 Black has played the opening very poorly
108 White has played the opening poorly
109 Black has played the opening poorly
110 White has played the opening well
111 Black has played the opening well
112 White has played the opening very well
113 Black has played the opening very well
114 White has played the middlegame very poorly
115 Black has played the middlegame very poorly
116 White has played the middlegame poorly
117 Black has played the middlegame poorly
118 White has played the middlegame well
119 Black has played the middlegame well
120 White has played the middlegame very well
121 Black has played the middlegame very well
122 White has played the ending very poorly
123 Black has played the ending very poorly
124 White has played the ending poorly
125 Black has played the ending poorly
126 White has played the ending well
127 Black has played the ending well
128 White has played the ending very well
129 Black has played the ending very well
130 White has slight counterplay
131 Black has slight counterplay
132 White has moderate counterplay
133 Black has moderate counterplay
134 White has decisive counterplay
135 Black has decisive counterplay
136 White has moderate time control pressure
137 Black has moderate time control pressure
138 White has severe time control pressure
139 Black has severe time control pressure

45
46
11: File names and directories

File names chosen for PGN data should be both informative and portable. The directory
names and arrangements should also be chosen for the same reasons and also for ease of navigation.

Some of suggested file and directory names may be difficult or impossible to represent on
certain computing systems. Use of appropriate conversion customs is encouraged.

11.1: File name suffix for PGN data

The use of the file suffix “.pgn” is encouraged for ASCII text files containing PGN data.

11.2: File name formation for PGN data for a

specific player

PGN games for a specific player should have a file name consisting of the player’s last name
followed by the “.pgn” suffix.

11.3: File name formation for PGN data for a

specific event

PGN games for a specific event should have a file name consisting of the event’s name
followed by the “.pgn” suffix.

11.4: File name formation for PGN data for

chronologically ordered games

PGN data files used for chronologically ordered (oldest first) archives use date information as
file name root strings. A file containing all the PGN games for a given year would have an eight
character name in the format “YYYY.pgn”. A file containing PGN data for a given month would have
a ten character name in the format “YYYYMM.pgn”. Finally, a file for PGN games for a single day
would have a twelve character name in the format “YYYYMMDD.pgn”. Large files are split into
smaller files as needed.

As game files are commonly arranged by chronological order, games with missing or
incomplete Date tag pair data are to be avoided. Any question mark characters in a Date tag value will
be treated as zero digits for collation within a file and also for file naming.

47
 Large quantities of PGN data arranged by chronological order should be organized into
hierarchical directories. A directory containing all PGN data for a given year would have a four
character name in the format “YYYY”; directories containing PGN files for a given month would have
a six character name in the format “YYYYMM”.

11.5: Suggested directory tree organization

A suggested directory arrangement for ftp sites and CD-ROM distributions:

* PGN: master directory of the PGN subtree (pub/chess/Game-Databases/PGN)

* PGN/Events: directory of PGN files, each for a specific event

* PGN/Events/News: news and status of the event collection

* PGN/Events/ReadMe: brief description of the local directory contents

* PGN/MGR: directory of the Master Games Repository subtree

* PGN/MGR/News: news and status of the entire PGN/MGR subtree

* PGN/MGR/ReadMe: brief description of the local directory contents

* PGN/MGR/YYYY: directory of games or subtrees for the year YYYY

* PGN/MGR/YYYY/ReadMe: description of local directory for year YYYY

* PGN/MGR/YYYY/News: news and status for year YYYY data

* PGN/News: news and status of the entire PGN subtree

* PGN/Players: directory of PGN files, each for a specific player

* PGN/Players/News: news and status of the player collection

* PGN/Players/ReadMe: brief description of the local directory contents

* PGN/ReadMe: brief description of the local directory contents

* PGN/Standard: the PGN standard (this document)

* PGN/Tools: software utilities that access PGN data

48
12: PGN collating sequence

There is a standard sorting order for PGN games within a file. This collation is based on eight
keys; these are the seven tag values of the STR and also the movetext itself.

The first (most important, primary key) is the Date tag. Earlier dated games appear prior to
games played at a later date. This field is sorted by ascending numeric value first with the year, then
the month, and finally the day of the month. Query characters used for unknown date digit values will
be treated as zero digit characters for ordering comparison.

The second key is the Event tag. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order.

The third key is the Site tag. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order.

The fourth key is the Round tag. This is sorted in ascending numeric order based on the value
of the integer used to denote the playing round. A query or hyphen used for the round is ordered before
any integer value. A query character is ordered before a hyphen character.

The fifth key is the White tag. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order.

The sixth key is the Black tag. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order.

The seventh key is the Result tag. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order.

The eighth key is the movetext itself. This is sorted in ascending ASCII order with the entire
text including spaces and newline characters.

49
50
13: PGN software

This section describes some PGN software that is either currently available or expected to be
available in the near future. The entries are presented in rough chronological order of their being made
known to the PGN standard coordinator. Authors of PGN capable software are encouraged to contact
the coordinator (e-mail address listed near the start of this document) so that the information may be
included here in this section.

In addition to the PGN standard, there are two more chess standards of interest to the chess
software community. These are the FEN standard (Forsyth-Edwards Notation) for position notation
and the EPD standard (Extended Position Description) for comprehensive position description for
automated interprogram processing. These are described in a later section of this document.

Some PGN software is freeware and can be gotten from ftp sites and other sources. Other
PGN software is payware and appears as part of commercial chessplaying programs and chess database
managers. Those who are interested in the propagation of the PGN standard are encouraged to support
manufacturers of chess software that use the standard. If a particular vendor does not offer PGN
compatibility, it is likely that a few letters to them along with a copy of this specification may help them
decide to include PGN support in their next release.

The staff at the University of Oklahoma at Norman (USA) have graciously provided an ftp site
(chess.uoknor.edu) for the storage of chess related data and programs. Because file names change over
time, those accessing the site are encouraged to first retrieve the file “pub/chess/ls-lR.gz” for a current
listing. A scan of this listing will also help locate versions of PGN programs for machine types and
operating systems other than those listed below. Further information about this archive can be gotten
from its administrator, Chris Petroff (chris@uoknor.edu).

For European users, the kind staff at the University of Hamburg (Germany) have provided the
ftp site ftp.math.uni-hamburg.de; this carries a daily mirror of the pub/chess directory at the
chess.uoknor.edu site.

13.1: The SAN Kit

The “SAN Kit” is an ANSI C source chess programming toolkit available for free from the ftp
site chess.uoknor.edu in the directory pub/chess/Unix as the file “SAN.tar.gz” (a gzip tar archive). This
kit contains code for PGN import and export and can be used to “regularize” PGN data into reduced
export format by use of its “tfgg” command. The SAN Kit also supports FEN I/O. Code from this kit
is freely redistributable for anyone as long as future distribution is unhindered for everyone. The SAN

51
 Kit is undergoing continuous development, although dates of future deliveries are quite difficult to
predict and releases sometimes appear months apart. Suggestions and comments should be directed to
its author, Steven J. Edwards (sje@world.std.com).

13.2: pgnRead

The program “pgnRead” runs under MS Windows 3.1 and provides an interactive graphical
user interface for scanning PGN data files. This program includes a colorful figurine chessboard
display and scrolling controls for game and game text selection. It is available from the
chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the pub/chess/DOS directory; several versions are available with names of
the form “pgnrd**.exe”; the latest at this writing is “PGNRD130.EXE”. Suggestions and comments
should be directed to its author, Keith Fuller (keithfx@aol.com).

13.3: mail2pgn/GIICS

The program “mail2pgn” produces a PGN version of chess game data generated by the ICS
(Internet Chess Server). It can be found at the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the pub/chess/DOS directory
as the file “mail2pgn.zip” A C language version is in the directory pub/chess/Unix as the file
“mail2pgn.c”. Suggestions and comments should be directed to its author, John Aronson
(aronson@helios.ece.arizona.edu). This code has been reportedly incorporated into the GIICS
(Graphical Interface for the ICS); suggestions and comments should be directed to its author, Tony
Acero (ace3@midway.uchicago.edu).

There is a report that mail2pgn has been superseded by the newer program “MV2PGN”
described below.

13.4: XBoard

“XBoard” is a comprehensive chess utility running under the X Window System that provides
a graphical user interface in a portable manner. A new version now handles PGN data. It is available
from the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the pub/chess/X directory as the file “xboard-3.0.pl9.tar.gz”.
Suggestions and comments should be directed to its author, Tim Mann (mann@src.dec.com).

13.5: cupgn

The program “cupgn” converts game data stored in the ChessBase format into PGN. It is
available from the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the pub/chess/Game-Databases/CBUFF directory as the

52
 file “cupgn.tar.gz”. Another version is in the directory pub/chess/DOS as the file “cupgn120.exe”.
Suggestions and comments should be directed to its author, Anjo Anjewierden (anjo@swi.psy.uva.nl).

13.6: Zarkov

The current version (3.0) of the commercial chessplaying program “Zarkov” can read and
write games using PGN. This program can also use the EPD standard for communication with other
EPD capable programs. Historically, Zarkov is the very first program to use EPD. Suggestions and
comments should be directed to its author, John Stanback (jhs@icbdfcs1.fc.hp.com).

A vendor for North America is:

International Chess Enterprises

P.O. Box 19457
Seattle, WA 98109
USA
(800) 262-4277

A vendor for Europe is:

Gambit-Soft
Feckenhauser Strasse 27
D-78628 Rottweil
GERMANY
49-741-21573

13.7: Chess Assistant

The upcoming version of the multifunction commercial database program “Chess Assistant”
will be able to use the PGN standard as an import and export option. There is a report of a freeware
program, “PGN2CA”, that will convert PGN databases into Chess Assistant format. For more
information, the contact is Victor Zakharov, one of the members of the Chess Assistant development
team (VICTOR@ldis.cs.msu.su).

A vendor for North America is:

International Chess Enterprises

P.O. Box 19457
Seattle, WA 98109
USA
(800) 262-4277

53
13.8: BOOKUP

The MS-DOS edition of the multifunction commercial program BOOKUP, version 8.1, is able
to use the EPD standard for communication with other EPD capable programs. It may also be PGN
capable as well.

The BOOKUP 8.1.1 Addenda notes dated 1993.12.17 provide comprehensive information on
how to use EPD in conjunction with “analyst” programs such as Zarkov and HIARCS. Specifically, the
search and evaluation abilities of an analyst program are combined with the information organization
abilities of the BOOKUP database program to provide position scoring. This is done by first having
BOOKUP export a database in EPD format, then having an analyst program annotate each EPD record
with a numeric score, and then having BOOKUP import the changed EPD file. BOOKUP can then
apply minimaxing to the imported database; this results in scores from terminal positions being
propagated back to earlier positions and even back to moves from the starting array.

For some reason, BOOKUP calls this process “backsolving”, but it’s really just standard
minimaxing. In any case, it’s a good example of how different programs from different authors
performing different types of tasks can be integrated by use of a common, non-proprietary standard.
This allows for a new set of powerful features that are beyond the capabilities of any one of the
individual component programs.

BOOKUP allows for some customizing of EPD actions. One such customization is to require
the positional evaluations to follow the EPD standard; this means that the score is always given from
the viewpoint of the active player. This is explained more fully in the section on the “ce” (centipawn
evaluation) opcode in the EPD description in a later section of this document. To ensure that
BOOKUP handles the centipawn evaluations in the “right” way, the EPD setting “Positive for White”
must be set to “N”. This makes BOOKUP work correctly with Zarkov and with all other programs that
use the “right” centipawn evaluation convention. There is an apparent problem with HIARCS that
requires this option to be set to “Y”; but this really means that, if true, HIARCS needs to be adjusted to
use the “right” centipawn evaluation convention.

A vendor in North America is:

BOOKUP
2763 Kensington Place West
Columbus, OH 43202
USA
(800) 949-5445
(614) 263-7219

54
13.9: HIARCS

The current version (2.1) of the commercial chessplaying program “HIARCS” is able to use
the EPD standard for communication with other EPD capable programs. It may also be PGN capable
as well. More details will appear here as they become available.

A vendor in North America is:

HIARCS
c/o BOOKUP
2763 Kensington Place West
Columbus, OH 43202
USA
(800) 949-5445
(614) 263-7219

13.10: Deja Vu

The chess database “Deja Vu” from ChessWorks is a PGN compatible collection of over
300,000 games. It is available only on CD-ROM and is scheduled for release in 1994.05 with periodic
revisions thereafter. The introductory price is US$329. For further information, the authors are John
Crayton and Eric Schiller and they can be contacted via e-mail (chesswks@netcom.com).

13.11: MV2PGN

The program “MV2PGN” can be used to convert game data generated by both current and
older versions of the GIICS (Graphical Interface - Internet Chess Server). The program is included in
the self extracting archive available from chess.uoknor.edu in the directory pub/chess/DOS as the file
“ics2pgn.exe”. Source code is also included. This program is reported to supersede the older
“mail2pgn” and was needed due to a change in ICS recording format in late 1993. For further
information about MV2PGN, the contact person is Gary Bastin (gbastin@x102a.ess.harris.com).

13.12: The Hansen utilities (cb2pgn, nic2pgn,

pgn2cb, pgn2nic)

The Hansen utilities are used to convert among various chess data representation formats. The
PGN related programs include: “cb2pgn.exe” (convert ChessBase to PGN), “nic2pgn.exe” (convert
NIC to PGN), “pgn2cb.exe” (convert PGN to ChessBase), and “pgn2nic.exe” (convert PGN to NIC).

55
 The ChessBase related utilities (cb2pgn/pgn2cb) are found at chess.uoknor.edu in the
pub/chess/Game-Databases/ChessBase directory.

The NIC related utilities (nic2pgn/pgn2nic) are found at chess.uoknor.edu in the

pub/chess/Game-Databases/NIC directory.

For further information about the Hansen utilities, the contact person is the author, Carsten
Hansen (ch0506@hdc.hha.dk).

13.13: Slappy the Database

“Slappy the Database” is a commercial chess database and translation program scheduled for
release no sooner than late 1994. It is a low cost utility with a simple character interface intended for
those who want a supported product but who do not need (or cannot afford) a comprehensive, feature-
laden program with a graphical user interface. Slappy’s two most important features are its batch
processing ability and its full implementation of each and every standard described in this document.
Versions of Slappy the Database will be provided for various platforms including: Intel 386/486 Unix,
Apple Macintosh, and MS-DOS.

Slappy may also be useful to those who have a full feature program who also need to run time
consuming chess database tasks on a spare computer.

Suggestions and comments should be directed to its author, Steven J. Edwards

(sje@world.std.com). More details will appear here as they become available.

13.14: CBASCII

“CBASCII” is a general utility for converting chess data between ChessBase format and
ASCII representations. It has PGN capability, and it is available from the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in
the pub/chess/DOS directory as the file “cba1_2.zip”. The contact person is the program’s author,
Andy Duplain (duplain@btcs.bt.co.uk).

13.15: ZZZZZZ

“ZZZZZZ” is a chessplaying program, complete with source, that also includes some database
functions. A recent version is reported to have both PGN and EPD capabilities. It is available from the
chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the pub/chess/Unix directory as the file “zzzzzz-3.2b1.tar.gz”. The contact
person is its author, Gijsbert Wiesenecker (wiesenecker@sara.nl).

56
13.16: icsconv

The program “icsconv” can be used to convert Internet Chess Server games, both old and new
format, to PGN. It is available from the chess.uoknor.edu site in the pub/chess/Game-
Databases/PGN/Tools directory as the file “icsconv.exe”. The contact person is the author, Kevin
Nomura (chow@netcom.com).

13.17: CHESSOP (CHESSOPN/CHESSOPG)

CHESSOP is an openings database and viewing tool with support for reading PGN games. It
runs under MS-DOS and displays positions rather than games. For each position, both good and bad
moves are listed with appropriate annotation. Transpositions are handled as well. The distributed
database contains over 100,000 positions covering all the common openings. Users can feed in their
own PGN data as well. CHESSOP takes 3 Mbyte of hard disk, costs US$39 and can be obtained from:

CHESSX Software
12 Bluebell Close
Glenmore Park
AUSTRALIA 2745.

The ideas behind CHESSOP can be seen in CHESSOPN (alias CHESSOPG), a free version
on the ICS server which has a reduced openings database (25,000 positions) and no PGN or
transposition support but is otherwise the same as CHESSOP. (These are the files “chessopg.zip” in
the directory pub/chess/DOS at the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site.)

13.18: CAT2PGN

The program “CAT2PGN” is a utility that translates data from the format used by Chess
Assistant into PGN. It is available from the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site. The contact person for
CAT2PGN is its author, David Myers (myers@frodo.biochem.duke.edu).

13.19: pgn2opg

The utility “pgn2opg” can be used to convert PGN files into a text format used by the
“CHESSOPG” program mentioned above. Although it does not perform any semantic analysis on
PGN input, it has been demonstrated to handle known correct PGN input properly. The file can be
found in the pub/chess/PGN/Tools directory at the chess.uoknor.edu ftp site. For more information, the
author is David Barnes (djb@ukc.ac.uk).

57
58
14: PGN data archives

The primary PGN data archive repository is located at the ftp site chess.uoknor.edu as the
directory “pub/chess/Game-Databases/PGN”. It is organized according to the description given in
section C.5 of this document. The European site ftp.math.uni-hamburg.de is also reported to carry a
regularly updated copy of the repository.

59
60
15: International Olympic Committee country
codes

International Olympic Committee country codes are employed for Site nation information
because of their traditional use with the reporting of international sporting events. Due to changes in
geography and linguistic custom, some of the following may be incorrect or outdated. Corrections and
extensions should be sent via e-mail to the PGN coordinator whose address listed near the start of this
document.

AFG: Afghanistan
AIR: Aboard aircraft
ALB: Albania
ALG: Algeria
AND: Andorra
ANG: Angola
ANT: Antigua
ARG: Argentina
ARM: Armenia
ATA: Antarctica
AUS: Australia
AZB: Azerbaijan
BAN: Bangladesh
BAR: Bahrain
BHM: Bahamas
BEL: Belgium
BER: Bermuda
BIH: Bosnia and Herzegovina
BLA: Belarus
BLG: Bulgaria
BLZ: Belize
BOL: Bolivia
BRB: Barbados
BRS: Brazil
BRU: Brunei
BSW: Botswana
CAN: Canada
CHI: Chile
COL: Columbia
CRA: Costa Rica
CRO: Croatia
CSR: Czechoslovakia
CUB: Cuba
CYP: Cyprus
DEN: Denmark
DOM: Dominican Republic
ECU: Ecuador
EGY: Egypt
ENG: England
ESP: Spain
EST: Estonia
FAI: Faroe Islands
FIJ: Fiji
FIN: Finland
FRA: France
GAM: Gambia
GCI: Guernsey-Jersey
GEO: Georgia
GER: Germany
GHA: Ghana

61
 GRC: Greece
GUA: Guatemala
GUY: Guyana
HAI: Haiti
HKG: Hong Kong
HON: Honduras
HUN: Hungary
IND: India
IRL: Ireland
IRN: Iran
IRQ: Iraq
ISD: Iceland
ISR: Israel
ITA: Italy
IVO: Ivory Coast
JAM: Jamaica
JAP: Japan
JRD: Jordan
JUG: Yugoslavia
KAZ: Kazakhstan
KEN: Kenya
KIR: Kyrgyzstan
KUW: Kuwait
LAT: Latvia
LEB: Lebanon
LIB: Libya
LIC: Liechtenstein
LTU: Lithuania
LUX: Luxembourg
MAL: Malaysia
MAU: Mauritania
MEX: Mexico
MLI: Mali
MLT: Malta
MNC: Monaco
MOL: Moldova
MON: Mongolia
MOZ: Mozambique
MRC: Morocco
MRT: Mauritius
MYN: Myanmar
NCG: Nicaragua
NET: The Internet
NIG: Nigeria
NLA: Netherlands Antilles
NLD: Netherlands
NOR: Norway
NZD: New Zealand
OST: Austria
PAK: Pakistan
PAL: Palestine
PAN: Panama
PAR: Paraguay
PER: Peru
PHI: Philippines
PNG: Papua New Guinea
POL: Poland
POR: Portugal
PRC: People’s Republic of China
PRO: Puerto Rico
QTR: Qatar
RIN: Indonesia
ROM: Romania
RUS: Russia
SAF: South Africa
SAL: El Salvador
SCO: Scotland
SEA: At Sea

62
SEN: Senegal
SEY: Seychelles
SIP: Singapore
SLV: Slovenia
SMA: San Marino
SPC: Aboard spacecraft
SRI: Sri Lanka
SUD: Sudan
SUR: Surinam
SVE: Sweden
SWZ: Switzerland
SYR: Syria
TAI: Thailand
TMT: Turkmenistan
TRK: Turkey
TTO: Trinidad and Tobago
TUN: Tunisia
UAE: United Arab Emirates
UGA: Uganda
UKR: Ukraine
UNK: Unknown
URU: Uruguay
USA: United States of America
UZB: Uzbekistan
VEN: Venezuela
VGB: British Virgin Islands
VIE: Vietnam
VUS: U.S. Virgin Islands
WLS: Wales
YEM: Yemen
YUG: Yugoslavia
ZAM: Zambia
ZIM: Zimbabwe
ZRE: Zaire

63
64
16: Additional chess data standards

While PGN is used for game storage, there are other data representation standards for other
chess related purposes. Two important standards are FEN and EPD, both described in this section.

16.1: FEN

FEN is “Forsyth-Edwards Notation”; it is a standard for describing chess positions using the
ASCII character set.

A single FEN record uses one text line of variable length composed of six data fields. The
first four fields of the FEN specification are the same as the first four fields of the EPD specification.

A text file composed exclusively of FEN data records should have a file name with the suffix
“.fen”.

16.1.1: History

FEN is based on a 19th century standard for position recording designed by the Scotsman
David Forsyth, a newspaper journalist. The original Forsyth standard has been slightly extended for
use with chess software by Steven Edwards with assistance from commentators on the Internet. This
new standard, FEN, was first implemented in Edwards’ SAN Kit.

16.1.2: Uses for a position notation

Having a standard position notation is particularly important for chess programmers as it

allows them to share position databases. For example, there exist standard position notation databases
with many of the classical benchmark tests for chessplaying programs, and by using a common position
notation format many hours of tedious data entry can be saved. Additionally, a position notation can be
useful for page layout programs and for confirming position status for e-mail competition.

Many interesting chess problem sets represented using FEN can be found at the
chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the directory pub/chess/SAN_testsuites.

16.1.3: Data fields

FEN specifies the piece placement, the active color, the castling availability, the en passant
target square, the halfmove clock, and the fullmove number. These can all fit on a single text line in an

65
 easily read format. The length of a FEN position description varies somewhat according to the
position. In some cases, the description could be eighty or more characters in length and so may not fit
conveniently on some displays. However, these positions aren’t too common.

A FEN description has six fields. Each field is composed only of non-blank printing ASCII
characters. Adjacent fields are separated by a single ASCII space character.

16.1.3.1: Piece placement data

The first field represents the placement of the pieces on the board. The board contents are
specified starting with the eighth rank and ending with the first rank. For each rank, the squares are
specified from file a to file h. White pieces are identified by uppercase SAN piece letters
(“PNBRQK”) and black pieces are identified by lowercase SAN piece letters (“pnbrqk”). Empty
squares are represented by the digits one through eight; the digit used represents the count of
contiguous empty squares along a rank. A solidus character “/” is used to separate data of adjacent
ranks.

16.1.3.2: Active color

The second field represents the active color. A lower case “w” is used if White is to move; a
lower case “b” is used if Black is the active player.

16.1.3.3: Castling availability

The third field represents castling availability. This indicates potential future castling that
may of may not be possible at the moment due to blocking pieces or enemy attacks. If there is no
castling availability for either side, the single character symbol “-“ is used. Otherwise, a combination
of from one to four characters are present. If White has kingside castling availability, the uppercase
letter “K” appears. If White has queenside castling availability, the uppercase letter “Q” appears. If
Black has kingside castling availability, the lowercase letter “k” appears. If Black has queenside
castling availability, then the lowercase letter “q” appears. Those letters which appear will be ordered
first uppercase before lowercase and second kingside before queenside. There is no white space
between the letters.

16.1.3.4: En passant target square

The fourth field is the en passant target square. If there is no en passant target square then the
single character symbol “-“ appears. If there is an en passant target square then is represented by a

66
 lowercase file character immediately followed by a rank digit. Obviously, the rank digit will be “3”
following a white pawn double advance (Black is the active color) or else be the digit “6” after a black
pawn double advance (White being the active color).

An en passant target square is given if and only if the last move was a pawn advance of two
squares. Therefore, an en passant target square field may have a square name even if there is no pawn
of the opposing side that may immediately execute the en passant capture.

16.1.3.5: Halfmove clock

The fifth field is a nonnegative integer representing the halfmove clock. This number is the
count of halfmoves (or ply) since the last pawn advance or capturing move. This value is used for the
fifty move draw rule.

16.1.3.6: Fullmove number

The sixth and last field is a positive integer that gives the fullmove number. This will have the
value “1” for the first move of a game for both White and Black. It is incremented by one immediately
after each move by Black.

16.1.4: Examples

Here’s the FEN for the starting position:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

And after the move 1. e4:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1

And then after 1. ... c5:

rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 2

And then after 2. Nf3:

rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R b KQkq - 1 2

For two kings on their home squares and a white pawn on e2 (White to move) with thirty eight
full moves played with five halfmoves since the last pawn move or capture:

4k3/8/8/8/8/8/4P3/4K3 w - - 5 39

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16.2: EPD

EPD is “Extended Position Description”; it is a standard for describing chess positions along
with an extended set of structured attribute values using the ASCII character set. It is intended for data
and command interchange among chessplaying programs. It is also intended for the representation of
portable opening library repositories.

A single EPD uses one text line of variable length composed of four data field followed by
zero or more operations. The four fields of the EPD specification are the same as the first four fields of
the FEN specification.

A text file composed exclusively of EPD data records should have a file name with the suffix
“.epd”.

16.2.1: History

EPD is based in part on the earlier FEN standard; it has added extensions for use with opening
library preparation and also for general data and command interchange among advanced chess
programs. EPD was developed by John Stanback and Steven Edwards; its first implementation is in
Stanback’s master strength chessplaying program Zarkov.

16.2.2: Uses for an extended position notation

Like FEN, EPD can also be used for general position description. However, unlike FEN, EPD
is designed to be expandable by the addition of new operations that provide new functionality as needs
arise.

Many interesting chess problem sets represented using EPD can be found at the
chess.uoknor.edu ftp site in the directory pub/chess/SAN_testsuites.

16.2.3: Data fields

EPD specifies the piece placement, the active color, the castling availability, and the en
passant target square of a position. These can all fit on a single text line in an easily read format. The
length of an EPD position description varies somewhat according to the position and any associated
operations. In some cases, the description could be eighty or more characters in length and so may not
fit conveniently on some displays. However, most EPD descriptions pass among programs only and
these are not usually seen by program users.

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 (Note: due to the likelihood of future expansion of EPD, implementors are encouraged to have
their programs handle EPD text lines of up to 1024 characters long.)

Each EPD data field is composed only of non-blank printing ASCII characters.

Adjacent data fields are separated by a single ASCII space character.

16.2.3.1: Piece placement data

The first field represents the placement of the pieces on the board. The board contents are
specified starting with the eighth rank and ending with the first rank. For each rank, the squares are
specified from file a to file h. White pieces are identified by uppercase SAN piece letters
(“PNBRQK”) and black pieces are identified by lowercase SAN piece letters (“pnbrqk”). Empty
squares are represented by the digits one through eight; the digit used represents the count of
contiguous empty squares along a rank. A solidus character “/” is used to separate data of adjacent
ranks.

16.2.3.2: Active color

The second field represents the active color. A lower case “w” is used if White is to move; a
lower case “b” is used if Black is the active player.

16.2.3.3: Castling availability

The third field represents castling availability. This indicates potential future castling that
may or may not be possible at the moment due to blocking pieces or enemy attacks. If there is no
castling availability for either side, the single character symbol “-“ is used. Otherwise, a combination
of from one to four characters are present. If White has kingside castling availability, the uppercase
letter “K” appears. If White has queenside castling availability, the uppercase letter “Q” appears. If
Black has kingside castling availability, the lowercase letter “k” appears. If Black has queenside
castling availability, then the lowercase letter “q” appears. Those letters which appear will be ordered
first uppercase before lowercase and second kingside before queenside. There is no white space
between the letters.

16.2.3.4: En passant target square

The fourth field is the en passant target square. If there is no en passant target square then the
single character symbol “-“ appears. If there is an en passant target square then is represented by a
lowercase file character immediately followed by a rank digit. Obviously, the rank digit will be “3”

69
 following a white pawn double advance (Black is the active color) or else be the digit “6” after a black
pawn double advance (White being the active color).

An en passant target square is given if and only if the last move was a pawn advance of two
squares. Therefore, an en passant target square field may have a square name even if there is no pawn
of the opposing side that may immediately execute the en passant capture.

16.2.4: Operations

An EPD operation is composed of an opcode followed by zero or more operands and is

concluded by a semicolon.

Multiple operations are separated by a single space character. If there is at least one operation
present in an EPD line, it is separated from the last (fourth) data field by a single space character.

16.2.4.1: General format

An opcode is an identifier that starts with a letter character and may be followed by up to
fourteen more characters. Each additional character may be a letter or a digit or the underscore
character.

An operand is either a set of contiguous non-white space printing characters or a string. A

string is a set of contiguous printing characters delimited by a quote character at each end. A string
value must have less than 256 bytes of data.

If at least one operand is present in an operation, there is a single space between the opcode
and the first operand. If more than one operand is present in an operation, there is a single blank
character between every two adjacent operands. If there are no operands, a semicolon character is
appended to the opcode to mark the end of the operation. If any operands appear, the last operand has
an appended semicolon that marks the end of the operation.

Any given opcode appears at most once per EPD record. Multiple operations in a single EPD
record should appear in ASCII order of their opcode names (mnemonics). However, a program reading
EPD records may allow for operations not in ASCII order by opcode mnemonics; the semantics are the
same in either case.

Some opcodes that allow for more than one operand may have special ordering requirements
for the operands. For example, the “pv” (predicted variation) opcode requires its operands (moves) to
appear in the order in which they would be played. All other opcodes that allow for more than one
operand should have operands appearing in ASCII order. An example of the latter set is the “bm” (best
move[s]) opcode; its operands are moves that are all immediately playable from the current position.

70
 Some opcodes require one or more operands that are chess moves. These moves should be
represented using SAN. If a different representation is used, there is no guarantee that the EPD will be
read correctly during subsequent processing.

Some opcodes require one or more operands that are integers. Some opcodes may require that
an integer operand must be within a given range; the details are described in the opcode list given
below. A negative integer is formed with a hyphen (minus sign) preceding the integer digit sequence.
An optional plus sign may be used for indicating a non-negative value, but such use is not required and
is indeed discouraged.

Some opcodes require one or more operands that are floating point numbers. Some opcodes
may require that a floating point operand must be within a given range; the details are described in the
opcode list given below. A floating point operand is constructed from an optional sign character (“+”
or “-“), a digit sequence (with at least one digit), a radix point (always “.”), and a final digit sequence
(with at least one digit).

16.2.4.2: Opcode mnemonics

An opcode mnemonic used for archival storage and for interprogram communication starts
with a lower case letter and is composed of only lower case letters, digits, and the underscore character
(i.e., no upper case letters). These mnemonics will also all be at least two characters in length.

Opcode mnemonics used only by a single program or an experimental suite of programs

should start with an upper case letter. This is so they may be easily distinguished should they be
inadvertently be encountered by other programs. When a such a “private” opcode be demonstrated to
be widely useful, it should be brought into the official list (appearing below) in a lower case form.

If a given program does not recognize a particular opcode, that operation is simply ignored; it
is not signaled as an error.

16.2.5: Opcode list

The opcodes are listed here in ASCII order of their mnemonics. Suggestions for new opcodes
should be sent to the PGN standard coordinator listed near the start of this document.

16.2.5.1: Opcode ‘‘acn’’: analysis count: nodes

The opcode “acn” takes a single non-negative integer operand. It is used to represent the
number of nodes examined in an analysis. Note that the value may be quite large for some extended
searches and so use of (at least) a long (four byte) representation is suggested.

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16.2.5.2: Opcode ‘‘acs’’: analysis count: seconds

The opcode “acs” takes a single non-negative integer operand. It is used to represent the
number of seconds used for an analysis. Note that the value may be quite large for some extended
searches and so use of (at least) a long (four byte) representation is suggested.

16.2.5.3: Opcode ‘‘am’’: avoid move(s)

The opcode “am” indicates a set of zero or more moves, all immediately playable from the
current position, that are to be avoided in the opinion of the EPD writer. Each operand is a SAN move;
they appear in ASCII order.

16.2.5.4: Opcode ‘‘bm’’: best move(s)

The opcode “bm” indicates a set of zero or more moves, all immediately playable from the
current position, that are judged to the best available by the EPD writer. Each operand is a SAN move;
they appear in ASCII order.

16.2.5.5: Opcode ‘‘c0’’: comment (primary, also ‘‘c1’’ though ‘‘c9’’)

The opcode “c0” (lower case letter “c”, digit character zero) indicates a top level comment
that applies to the given position. It is the first of ten ranked comments, each of which has a mnemonic
formed from the lower case letter “c” followed by a single decimal digit. Each of these opcodes takes
either a single string operand or no operand at all.

This ten member comment family of opcodes is intended for use as descriptive commentary
for a complete game or game fragment. The usual processing of these opcodes are as follows:

1) At the beginning of a game (or game fragment), a move sequence scanning program
initializes each element of its set of ten comment string registers to be null.

2) As the EPD record for each position in the game is processed, the comment operations are
interpreted from left to right. (Actually, all operations in n EPD record are interpreted from left to
right.) Because operations appear in ASCII order according to their opcode mnemonics, opcode “c0”
(if present) will be handled prior to all other opcodes, then opcode “c1” (if present), and so forth until
opcode “c9” (if present).

3) The processing of opcode “cN” (0 <= N <= 9) involves two steps. First, all comment
string registers with an index equal to or greater than N are set to null. (This is the set “cN” though

72
 “c9”.) Second, and only if a string operand is present, the value of the corresponding comment string
register is set equal to the string operand.

16.2.5.6: Opcode ‘‘ce’’: centipawn evaluation

The opcode “ce” indicates the evaluation of the indicated position in centipawn units. It takes
a single operand, an optionally signed integer that gives an evaluation of the position from the
viewpoint of the active player; i.e., the player with the move. Positive values indicate a position
favorable to the moving player while negative values indicate a position favorable to the passive player;
i.e., the player without the move. A centipawn evaluation value close to zero indicates a neutral
positional evaluation.

Values are restricted to integers that are equal to or greater than -32767 and are less than or
equal to 32766.

A value greater than 32000 indicates the availability of a forced mate to the active player. The
number of plies until mate is given by subtracting the evaluation from the value 32767. Thus, a
winning mate in N fullmoves is a mate in ((2 * N) - 1) halfmoves (or ply) and has a corresponding
centipawn evaluation of (32767 - ((2 * N) - 1)). For example, a mate on the move (mate in one) has a
centipawn evaluation of 32766 while a mate in five has a centipawn evaluation of 32758.

A value less than -32000 indicates the availability of a forced mate to the passive player. The
number of plies until mate is given by subtracting the evaluation from the value -32767 and then
negating the result. Thus, a losing mate in N fullmoves is a mate in (2 * N) halfmoves (or ply) and has
a corresponding centipawn evaluation of (-32767 + (2 * N)). For example, a mate after the move
(losing mate in one) has a centipawn evaluation of -32765 while a losing mate in five has a centipawn
evaluation of -32757.

A value of -32767 indicates an illegal position. A stalemate position has a centipawn

evaluation of zero as does a position drawn due to insufficient mating material. Any other position
known to be a certain forced draw also has a centipawn evaluation of zero.

16.2.5.7: Opcode ‘‘dm’’: direct mate fullmove count

The “dm” opcode is used to indicate the number of fullmoves until checkmate is to be
delivered by the active color for the indicated position. It always takes a single operand which is a
positive integer giving the fullmove count. For example, a position known to be a “mate in three”
would have an operation of “dm 3;” to indicate this.

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 This opcode is intended for use with problem sets composed of positions requiring direct mate
answers as solutions.

16.2.5.8: Opcode ‘‘draw_accept’’: accept a draw offer

The opcode “draw_accept” is used to indicate that a draw offer made after the move that lead
to the indicated position is accepted by the active player. This opcode takes no operands.

16.2.5.9: Opcode ‘‘draw_claim’’: claim a draw

The opcode “draw_claim” is used to indicate claim by the active player that a draw exists.
The draw is claimed because of a third time repetition or because of the fifty move rule or because of
insufficient mating material. A supplied move (see the opcode “sm”) is also required to appear as part
of the same EPD record. The draw_claim opcode takes no operands.

16.2.5.10: Opcode ‘‘draw_offer’’: offer a draw

The opcode “draw_offer” is used to indicate that a draw is offered by the active player. A
supplied move (see the opcode “sm”) is also required to appear as part of the same EPD record; this
move is considered played from the indicated position. The draw_offer opcode takes no operands.

16.2.5.11: Opcode ‘‘draw_reject’’: reject a draw offer

The opcode “draw_reject” is used to indicate that a draw offer made after the move that lead
to the indicated position is rejected by the active player. This opcode takes no operands.

16.2.5.12: Opcode ‘‘eco’’: _Encyclopedia of Chess Openings_ opening code

The opcode “eco” is used to associate an opening designation from the Encyclopedia of Chess
Openings taxonomy with the indicated position. The opcode takes either a single string operand (the
ECO opening name) or no operand at all. If an operand is present, its value is associated with an
“ECO” string register of the scanning program. If there is no operand, the ECO string register of the
scanning program is set to null.

The usage is similar to that of the “ECO” tag pair of the PGN standard.

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16.2.5.13: Opcode ‘‘fmvn’’: fullmove number

The opcode “fmvn” represents the fullmove n umber associated with the position. It always
takes a single operand that is the positive integer value of the move number.

This opcode is used to explicitly represent the fullmove number in EPD that is present by
default in FEN as the sixth field. Fullmove number information is usually omitted from EPD because it
does not affect move generation (commonly needed for EPD-using tasks) but it does affect game
notation (commonly needed for FEN-using tasks). Because of the desire for space optimization for
large EPD files, fullmove numbers were dropped from EPD’s parent FEN. The halfmove clock
information was similarly dropped.

16.2.5.14: Opcode ‘‘hmvc’’: halfmove clock

The opcode “hmvc” represents the halfmove clock associated with the position. The halfmove
clock of a position is equal to the number of plies since the last pawn move or capture. This
information is used to implement the fifty move draw rule. It always takes a single operand that is the
non-negative integer value of the halfmove clock.

This opcode is used to explicitly represent the halfmove clock in EPD that is present by
default in FEN as the fifth field. Halfmove clock information is usually omitted from EPD because it
does not affect move generation (commonly needed for EPD-using tasks) but it does affect game
termination issues (commonly needed for FEN-using tasks). Because of the desire for space
optimization for large EPD files, halfmove clock values were dropped from EPD’s parent FEN. The
fullmove number information was similarly dropped.

16.2.5.15: Opcode ‘‘id’’: position identification

The opcode “id” is used to provide a simple identifying label for the indicated position. It
takes a single string operand.

This opcode is intended for use with test suites used for measuring chessplaying program
strength. An example “id” operand for the seven hundred fifty seventh position of the one thousand
one problems in Reinfeld’s 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations would be
“WCSAC.0757” while the fifteenth position in the twenty four problem Bratko-Kopec test suite would
have an “id” operand of “BK.15”.

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16.2.5.16: Opcode ‘‘nic’’: New In Chess opening code

The opcode “nic” is used to associate an opening designation from the New In Chess
taxonomy with the indicated position. The opcode takes either a single string operand (the NIC
opening name) or no operand at all. If an operand is present, its value is associated with an “NIC”
string register of the scanning program. If there is no operand, the NIC string register of the scanning
program is set to null.

The usage is similar to that of the “NIC” tag pair of the PGN standard.

16.2.5.17: Opcode ‘‘noop’’: no operation

The “noop” opcode is used to indicate no operation. It takes zero or more operands, each of
which may be of any type. The operation involves no processing. It is intended for use by developers
for program testing purposes.

16.2.5.18: Opcode ‘‘pm’’: predicted move

The “pm” opcode is used to provide a single predicted move for the indicated position. It has
exactly one operand, a move playable from the position. This move is judged by the EPD writer to
represent the best move available to the active player.

If a non-empty “pv” (predicted variation) line of play is also present in the same EPD record,
the first move of the predicted variation is the same as the predicted move.

The “pm” opcode is intended for use as a general “display hint” mechanism.

16.2.5.19: Opcode ‘‘pv’’: predicted variation

The “pv” opcode is used to provide a predicted variation for the indicated position. It has
zero or more operands which represent a sequence of moves playable from the position. This sequence
is judged by the EPD writer to represent the best play available.

If a “pm” (predicted move) operation is also present in the same EPD record, the predicted
move is the same as the first move of the predicted variation.

16.2.5.20: Opcode ‘‘rc’’: repetition count

The “rc” opcode is used to indicate the number of occurrences of the indicated position. It
takes a single, positive integer operand. Any position, including the initial starting position, is

76
 considered to have an “rc” value of at least one. A value of three indicates a candidate for a draw claim
by the position repetition rule.

16.2.5.21: Opcode ‘‘resign’’: game resignation

The opcode “resign” is used to indicate that the active player has resigned the game. This
opcode takes no operands.

16.2.5.22: Opcode ‘‘sm’’: supplied move

The “sm” opcode is used to provide a single supplied move for the indicated position. It has
exactly one operand, a move playable from the position. This move is the move to be played from the
position.

The “sm” opcode is intended for use to communicate the most recent played move in an active
game. It is used to communicate moves between programs in automatic play via a network. This
includes correspondence play using e-mail and also programs acting as network front ends to human
players.

16.2.5.23: Opcode ‘‘tcgs’’: telecommunication: game selector

The “tcgs” opcode is one of the telecommunication family of opcodes used for games
conducted via e-mail and similar means. This opcode takes a single operand that is a positive integer.
It is used to select among various games in progress between the same sender and receiver.

16.2.5.24: Opcode ‘‘tcri’’: telecommunication: receiver identification

The “tcri” opcode is one of the telecommunication family of opcodes used for games
conducted via e-mail and similar means. This opcode takes two order dependent string operands. The
first operand is the e-mail address of the receiver of the EPD record. The second operand is the name
of the player (program or human) at the address who is the actual receiver of the EPD record.

16.2.5.25: Opcode ‘‘tcsi’’: telecommunication: sender identification

The “tcsi” opcode is one of the telecommunication family of opcodes used for games
conducted via e-mail and similar means. This opcode takes two order dependent string operands. The
first operand is the e-mail address of the sender of the EPD record. The second operand is the name of
the player (program or human) at the address who is the actual sender of the EPD record.

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16.2.5.26: Opcode ‘‘v0’’: variation name (primary, also ‘‘v1’’ though ‘‘v9’’)

The opcode “v0” (lower case letter “v”, digit character zero) indicates a top level variation
name that applies to the given position. It is the first of ten ranked variation names, each of which has a
mnemonic formed from the lower case letter “v” followed by a single decimal digit. Each of these
opcodes takes either a single string operand or no operand at all.

This ten member variation name family of opcodes is intended for use as traditional variation
names for a complete game or game fragment. The usual processing of these opcodes are as follows:

1) At the beginning of a game (or game fragment), a move sequence scanning program
initializes each element of its set of ten variation name string registers to be null.

2) As the EPD record for each position in the game is processed, the variation name
operations are interpreted from left to right. (Actually, all operations in n EPD record are interpreted
from left to right.) Because operations appear in ASCII order according to their opcode mnemonics,
opcode “v0” (if present) will be handled prior to all other opcodes, then opcode “v1” (if present), and
so forth until opcode “v9” (if present).

3) The processing of opcode “vN” (0 <= N <= 9) involves two steps. First, all variation
name string registers with an index equal to or greater than N are set to null. (This is the set “vN”
though “v9”.) Second, and only if a string operand is present, the value of the corresponding variation
name string register is set equal to the string operand.

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17: Alternative chesspiece identifier letters

English language piece names are used to define the letter set for identifying chesspieces in
PGN movetext. However, authors of programs which are used only for local presentation or scanning
of chess move data may find it convenient to use piece letter codes common in their locales. This is not
a problem as long as PGN data that resides in archival storage or that is exchanged among programs
still uses the SAN (English) piece letter codes: “PNBRQK”.

For the above authors only, a list of alternative piece letter codes are provided:

Language Piece letters (pawn knight bishop rook queen king)

Czech PJSVDK
Danish BSLTDK
Dutch OPLTDK
English PNBRQK
Estonian PROVLK
Finnish PRLTDK
French PCFTDR
German BSLTDK
Hungarian GHFBVK
Icelandic PRBHDK
Italian PCATDR
Norwegian BSLTDK
Polish PSGWHK
Portuguese PCBTDR
Romanian PCNTDR
Spanish PCATDR
Swedish BSLTDK

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80
18: Formal syntax

<PGN-database> ::= <PGN-game> <PGN-database>

<empty>
<PGN-game> ::= <tag-section> <movetext-section>
<tag-section> ::= <tag-pair> <tag-section>
<empty>
<tag-pair> ::= [ <tag-name> <tag-value> ]
<tag-name> ::= <identifier>
<tag-value> ::= <string>
<movetext-section> ::= <element-sequence> <game-termination>
<element-sequence> ::= <element> <element-sequence>
<recursive-variation> <element-sequence>
<empty>
<element> ::= <move-number-indication>
<SAN-move>
<numeric-annotation-glyph>

<recursive-variation> ::= ( <element-sequence> )

<game-termination> ::= 1-0
0-1
1/2-1/2
*
<empty> ::=

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19: Canonical chess position hash coding

*** This section is under development.

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84
20: Binary representation (PGC)

*** This section is under development.

The binary coded version of PGN is PGC (PGN Game Coding). PGC is a binary
representation standard of PGN data designed for the dual goals of storage efficiency and program I/O.
A file containing PGC data should have a name with a suffix of “.pgc”.

Unlike PGN text files that may have locale dependent representations for newlines, PGC files
have data that does not vary due to local processing environment. This means that PGC files may be
transferred among systems using general binary file methods.

PGC files should be used only when the use of PGN is impractical due to time and space
resource constraints. As the general level of processing capabilities increases, the need for PGC over
PGN will decrease. Therefore, implementors are encouraged not to use PGC as the default
representation because it is much more difficult (than PGN) to understand without proper software.

PGC data is composed of a sequence of PGC records. Each record is composed of a sequence
of one or more bytes. The first byte is the PGN record marker and it specifies the interpretation of the
remaining portion of the record. This remaining portion is composed of zero or more PGN record
items. Item types include move sequences, move sets, and character strings.

20.1: Bytes, words, and doublewords

At the lowest level, PGC binary data is organized as bytes, words (two contiguous bytes), and
doublewords (four contiguous bytes). All eight bits of a byte are used. Longwords (eight contiguous
bytes) are not used. Integer values are stored using two’s complement representation. Integers may be
signed or unsigned depending on context. Multibyte integers are stored in low-endian format with the
least significant byte appearing first.

A one byte integer item is called “int-1”. A two byte integer item is called “int-2”. A four
byte integer item is called “int-4”.

Characters are stored as bytes using the ISO 8859/1 Latin-1 (ECMA-94) code set.

There is no provision for other characters sets or representations.

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20.2: Move ordinals

A chess move is represented using a move ordinal. This is a single unsigned byte quantity
with values from zero to 255. A move ordinal is interpreted as an index into the list of legal moves
from the current position. This list is constructed by generating the legal moves from the current
position, assigning SAN ASCII strings to each move, and then sorting these strings in ascending order.
Note that a seven bit ordinal, as used by some inferior representation systems, is insufficient as there
are some positions that have more than 128 moves available.

Examples: From the initial position, there are twenty moves. Move ordinal 0 corresponds to
the SAN move string “Na3”; move ordinal 1 corresponds to “Nc3”, move ordinal 4 corresponds to
“a3”, and move ordinal 19 corresponds to “h4”.

Moves can be organized into sequences and sets. A move sequence is an ordered list of
moves that are played, one after another from first to last. A move set is a list of moves that are all
playable from the current position.

Move sequence data is represented using a length header followed by move ordinal data. The
length header is an unsigned integer that may be a byte or a word. The integer gives the number,
possibly zero, of following move ordinal bytes. Most move sequences can be represented using just a
byte header; these are called “mvseq-1” items. Move sequence data using a word header are called
“mvseq-2” items.

Move set data is represented using a length header followed by move ordinal data. The length
header is an unsigned integer that is a byte. The integer gives the number, possibly zero, of following
move ordinal bytes. All move sets are be represented using just a byte header; these are called “mvset-
1” items. (Note the implied restriction that a move set can only have a maximum of 255 of the possible
256 ordinals present at one time.)

20.3: String data

PGC string data is represented using a length header followed by bytes of character data. The
length header is an unsigned integer that may be a byte, a word, or a doubleword. The integer gives the
number, possibly zero, of following character bytes. Most strings can be represented using just a byte
header; these are called “string-1” items. String data using a word header are called “string-2” items
and string data using a doubleword header are called “string-4” items. No special ASCII NUL
termination byte is required for PGC storage of a string as the length is explicitly given in the item
header.

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20.4: Marker codes

PGC marker codes are given in hexadecimal format. PGC marker code zero (marker 0x00) is
the “noop” marker and carries no meaning. Each additional marker code defined appears in its own
subsection below.

20.4.1: Marker 0x01: reduced export format single game

Marker 0x01 is used to indicate a single complete game in reduced export format. This refers
to a game that has only the Seven Tag Roster data, played moves, and no annotations or comments.
This record type is used as an alternative to the general game data begin/end record pairs described
below. The general marker pair (0x05/0x06) is used to help represent game data that can’t be
adequately represented in reduced export format. There are eight items that follow marker 0x01 to
form the “reduced export format single game” record. In order, these are:

1) string-1 (Event tag value)

2) string-1 (Site tag value)

3) string-1 (Date tag value)

4) string-1 (Round tag value)

5) string-1 (White tag value)

6) string-1 (Black tag value)

7) string-1 (Result tag value)

8) mvseq-2 (played moves)

20.4.2: Marker 0x02: tag pair

Marker 0x02 is used to indicate a single tag pair. There are two items that follow marker 0x02
to form the “tag pair” record; in order these are:

1) string-1 (tag pair name)

2) string-1 (tag pair value)

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20.4.3: Marker 0x03: short move sequence

Marker 0x03 is used to indicate a short move sequence. There is one item that follows marker
0x03 to form the “short move sequence” record; this is:

1) mvseq-1 (played moves)

20.4.4: Marker 0x04: long move sequence

Marker 0x04 is used to indicate a long move sequence. There is one item that follows marker
0x04 to form the “long move sequence” record; this is:

1) mvseq-2 (played moves)

20.4.5: Marker 0x05: general game data begin

Marker 0x05 is used to indicate the beginning of data for a game. It has no associated items;
it is a complete record by itself. Instead, it marks the beginning of PGC records used to describe a
game. All records up to the corresponding “general game data end” record are considered to be part of
the same game. (PGC record type 0x01, “reduced export format single game”, is not permitted to
appear within a general game begin/end record pair. The general game construct is to be used as an
alternative to record type 0x01 in those cases where the latter is too restrictive to contain the data for a
game.)

20.4.6: Marker 0x06: general game data end

Marker 0x06 is used to indicate the end of data for a game. It has no associated items; it is a
complete record by itself. Instead, it marks the end of PGC records used to describe a game. All
records after the corresponding (and earlier appearing) “general game data begin” record are
considered to be part of the same game.

20.4.7: Marker 0x07: simple-nag

Marker 0x07 is used to indicate the presence of a simple NAG (Numeric Annotation Glyph).
This is an annotation marker that has only a short type identification and no operands. There is one
item that follows marker 0x07 to form the “simple-nag” record; this is:

1) int-1 (unsigned NAG value, from 0 to 255)

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20.4.8: Marker 0x08: rav-begin

Marker 0x08 is used to indicate the beginning of an RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation).
It has no associated items; it is a complete record by itself. Instead, it marks the beginning of PGC
records used to describe a recursive annotation. It is considered an opening bracket for a later rav-end
record; the recursive annotation is completely described between the bracket pair. The rav-
begin/data/rav-end structures can be nested.

20.4.9: Marker 0x09: rav-end

Marker 0x09 is used to indicate the end of an RAV (Recursive Annotation Variation). It has
no associated items; it is a complete record by itself. Instead, it marks the end of PGC records used to
describe a recursive annotation. It is considered a closing bracket for an earlier rav-begin record; the
recursive annotation is completely described between the bracket pair. The rav-begin/data/rav-end
structures can be nested.

20.4.10: Marker 0x0a: escape-string

Marker 0x0a is used to indicate the presence of an escape string. This is a string represented
by the use of the percent sign (“%”) escape mechanism in PGN. The data that is escaped is the
sequence of characters immediately follwoing the percent sign up to but not including the terminating
newline. As is the case with the PGN percent sign escape, the use of a PGC escape-string record is
limited to use for non-archival data. There is one item that follows marker 0x0a to form the “escape-
string” record; this is the string data being escaped:

1) string-2 (escaped string data)

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21: E-mail correspondence usage

*** This section is under development.

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