PGN (Portable Game Notation) is the standard text format for chess games. If you have ever downloaded a game from Lichess, Chess.com or a tournament, it was a PGN.

Two parts

Tag pairs (headers) describe the game:

[Event "Club Championship"], [White "Smith, A"], [Black "Jones, B"], [Result "1-0"]

The Seven Tag Roster is Event, Site, Date, Round, White, Black and Result.

Movetext is the moves in Standard Algebraic Notation followed by the result: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 1-0.

Extras

  • {comments in braces} and ; rest-of-line comments
  • ( variations in parentheses )
  • $1-style NAGs, numeric annotation glyphs for symbols such as ! and ?
  • {[%clk 0:03:00]} clock times added by online sites

Common problems

  • Illegal moves: a typo makes every later move invalid. A validator shows the exact move.
  • Duplicates when you merge two databases.
  • Huge files with comments and clocks you do not need.

Our free PGN tools validate moves, strip comments and clocks, remove duplicates and export to PGN, CSV or a FEN list.