Problematic Positions and Speculative Play

Abstract

When commentators annotate chess games, they make use of various symbols to show their evaluation of moves or positions. For example, one might ind something like 23. Rel? -+, indicating that white’s 23rd move was bad (‘?’) and the position is now lost (‘-+’). Whereas ‘?’s can have game-theoretic significance, ‘!’s (“very good moves”) and ‘!!’s (“excellent moves”) do not (since it is not possible to turn a game-theoretically lost position into a draw or win). The meaning of a ‘!’s (and other evaluative symbols) must therefore be found, not in a game-theoretic analysis of the game, but rather in its “psychological” aspects.