Demo Chess Match Entry Form

This form will enable you to automatically add a chess match and store it in standard PGN form. Please try to get this information correct the first time; editing the data requires the use of an edit password.

This form is divided into three parts:

You need not fill in the optional heading entries, but you must fill out the mandatory heading entries and the game moves.

Mandatory Heading Entries

Directory to contain this game data:
Event (in which game took place):
Site of Event:
Date When Game Began: Year: Month: Day:
Round Number ("-" if single round):
Name of White (in last, first order or just the last name):

Name of Black (in last, first order or just the last name):

Game Result:
1-0 (White Won)
0-1 (Black Won)
1/2-1/2 (Draw)
* (Undetermined)

Optional Heading Entries

Note: This system will try to fill in empty opening information.
ECO Code for opening (form XDD or XDD/DD):
Text name of opening (e.g. 'Ruy Lopez'):

Text name of opening variation:

Starting Time (HH:MM:SS) (use a 24-hour clock):

Time Control:

Please note that time control has a large number of options. "?" means unknown, "-" means untimed, "x/y" means y seconds to make x moves, a single number means sudden death after that many seconds, "x+y" means starting with x many seconds and adding y seconds after each move, and "*x" means sandclock (the x seconds are shared between the players; as one clock goes down the others go up). "Delays" are not handled. You can have multiple values separated by colons.
White's Ratings: USCF: FIDE Elo: ICC:
Black's Ratings: USCF: FIDE Elo: ICC:

White's Email address:
Black's Email address:
Reason for Game Termination:
normal
abandoned
unterminated
emergency
time forfeit
adjudication (by 3rd party)
rules infraction
death

If the starting position isn't the standard unplayed position, enter its FEN:

A FEN records in one line of text the following information: the piece placement, the color to move next (b or w), the castling availability, the en passant target square, the halfmove clock, and the fullmove number. Each of these pieces of information is separated by a space character.

Piece placement is given in left-to-right, top-to-bottom order (from White's perspective). 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.

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.

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" 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.

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.

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.

The FEN for the starting position is: 

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
After the move 1. e4 it is: 
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1

Other PGN Heading Information:
The PGN format supports other headings not directly supported here. If you wish to enter other such heading information, please enter them here.

Game Moves

Please enter the game moves ("movetext") in the area below.

You can include comments in movetext by surrounding them with curly braces, e.g. {this is a comment}, or by using a semicolon (everything in a line after a semicolon is ignored). The last entry must be a repeat of the result (e.g. "1-0" if white won). Line breaks and indentation are not significant, but there must be at least one space or line break between each player's move. You may indicate move numbers by simply typing the number followed by a period, and you can use "..." before Black's moves; move numbers are optional.

You must use standard algebraic notation (SAN) as defined in PGN. Examples of SAN are "Nc3" (Knight to c3), "e4" (pawn to e4), and "exf4" (pawn on e takes f4). More formally, a SAN move is "O-O" (kingside castle), "O-O-O" (queenside castle), or the following pattern: 

  moving_piece disambiguator x_if_capture destination promotion markings

Where moving_piece is N (Knight), B (Bishop), R (Rook), Q (Queen), K (King), or nothing if it's a pawn. Disambiguator is normally empty, but if more than one piece could move to the destination this identifies the moving piece; the disambiguator is the file (letter) or rank (number) the moving piece is moving from (in rare cases both; if only one is needed use the letter). The disambiguator must be a letter if the move is a pawn capturing something. x_if_capture is an "x" if a piece is being captured, else nothing. The destination is a lowercase letter (a-h) followed by a number (1-8); when a pawn is capturing the number is optional. The promotion field is used if a pawn is promoted; when used, it is an "=" sign followed by the piece the pawn promotes to ("e8=Q" means pawn moves to e8 and promotes to Queen).

The markings add other information about the move, and are as follows: 

   check suffix numeric_annotation

The check marking is "+" if that move checks the opponent's king and "#" if that move checkmates the opponent's king. The suffix is one of the traditional suffixes: "!", "?", "!!", "!?", "?!", and "??". The numeric_annotation is a "$" followed by a numeric code describing the move, and is usually separated by a space from the main move; see the PGN standard for more information.

You can describe variations by using parentheses. These can describe why a certain move wasn't played, or show should have been played. An opening parentheses describes a possible alternative sequence of moves by unplaying the move before the opening parenthesis, "(". Parentheses can be nested (to show alternatives to alternatives).

Save this game

Password (may be required to add or overwrite an existing file):


If you are interested in understanding exactly what is permitted in PGN (the standard chess game storage format), see the PGN standard.

This form was created by

David A. Wheeler (dwheeler@dwheeler.com)