Chess question - help deciphering computer game analysis

The Game Room
1

I am trying to figure out how to decipher the game analysis results from some chess software (Shredder Classic 4 demo for Mac OS X) so entered a basic Scholar’s mate, and have a few questions about the results…

First off it I gave it a time per move of 10 seconds (OK?); I left the “Threshold Value” at the default of 50 (what is this?)

Results were as follows (in color - which I hope I have transcribed accurately here):

1.e4 +0.24/9 0s e5 +0.18/10 1s

2.Qh5 -0.39/13 2s [2.Nf3 +0.33/8 0s Nc6 3.Nc3 Bc5 4.Bb5 Nf6 5.Bxc6 dxc6 6.Nxe5]

  1. … Nc6 -0.33/12 3s

3.Bc4 -0.18/12 5s Nf6 +M1/16 0s [3. … g6 -0.30/5 0s 4.Qf3 Qf6 5.c3 h5]

4.Qxf7# +M1/1 0s

After the first e4 move I understand the +0.24 in blue indicates White theoretically being up approx. 1/4 piece point value…what does the “9” after the slash mean? What does the “0s” mean?

After White brings out the Queen the computer decides this is a bad move for white (-0.39) and suggests a preferable alternate line (+.033, in grey) beginning with Nf3, correct? Again I do not know what /X and Xs indicates.

Things pick back up with the actual game line and continue until black moves Nf6 - a fatal error indicated in red, with +M1 meaning mate for White in 1, and the suggested line for Black beginning with g6 alternate line indicated in grey? At game end I still am unsure about the /X and Xs notations.

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

From the manual, page 15:

• evaluation
• search depth
• time
• best line so far
• number of the evaluated positions per second

So it looks like evaluation of position / search depth, and calculation time in seconds.

3

It should be long enough to do a basic blunder check; though you might need to be a little careful about trusting the results. It should at least pick out interesting points in the game. The ply level does seems a little low to me, though.

Personally I find looking over a game with “infinite analysis”, which is where the computer is telling you its best lines/current thinking (and you can have it give multiple lines) to be far more effective than game analysis in this fashion.

The difference between the evaluation of the game move, vs the move the engine thinks is best.

And search depth is measured in ply, i.e. moves by a single side, or half moves.