Scid

Scid is a software application whose purpose is to help you view, edit, and manage collections of chess games and strategies. It runs on Windows, Unix/Linux, OS X, and Android.

You may find the GUI a bit overwhelming at a first glance but this only because Scid has a lot to offer when it comes to learning you how to play chess. The tool reveals details about the active game with the aid of the built-in chessboard, along with notations, comments, as well as database examples.

Several navigation buttons, that are placed at the top of the board, help you go the start or end of the game, go back or forward one move, add a new variation, start or stop the autoplay mode, rotate the board 180 degrees, as well as show or hide board coordinates.

Scid offers support for an autoplay mode whose purpose is to help you automatically play the moves during a game. You are allowed to set the time delay between the moves and get information about the current game, such as players, their country, result, date, site, and photo. The tool reveals tablebases containing information about all positions.

Scid lets you enter moves for a game using your mouse or keyboard. You may retract moves, mark fields and directions directly on the board using the built-in comment editor, enable the trial mode for making temporary moves and changes to the game, and correct mistakes.

Moves can be added via the keyboard as long as they are in the SAN notation. The auto-completion feature helps you type only parts of the move and the rest is automatically inserted, and you may also enter common annotation symbols.

Chess games can be annotated by providing information about symbols and comments, as well as variations (an alternative sequence of moves). Plus, you can bookmark games, export games to HTML, PGN or LaTeX files, import data from PGN, EPD or SOR files, and generate printable reports about players and openings.

Scid helps you choose between various game examples included in the database and perform searches for the current board, specified material and piece patterns, as well as players, result, and date.

You are allowed to work with a ‘clipbase’ database which acts just like the other ones but it doesn’t store files permanently, keeping them only in memory. Database maintenance can be used for deleting unwanted games, correcting player names and rearranging the order of games.

Scid accommodates an advanced set of features for helping you browse databases of chess games, edit games, as well as perform searches by different criteria. In case you want to skip the installation steps, you can have a look at its portable counterpart, Scid Portable.