View Game

Layout

This interactive viewer is made up of the areas described below.

• Top bar — the row of buttons across the top: Help (marked with a question mark, which opens and closes this panel), Show Details / Hide Details (marked with an information “i”), Flip Board (marked with a flip icon) and Annotations (marked with a memo icon). When several games are embedded in one block, a Game selector also appears here.
• Game details — the panel listing tags such as the event, players, result, opening and rating. It is hidden or revealed with the Show Details / Hide Details button (see below).
• Board — the chess board showing the current position.
• Evaluation bar — the coloured bar beneath the board (see below).
• Controls — the row of buttons used to step through the game.
• Moves and annotations — the scrollable list of moves, comments, symbols and variations. The current move is highlighted and kept in view within this panel as you navigate. Drag the handle along the bottom edge of this panel, or use the arrow keys when it is focused, to change its height.

Showing and hiding the game details

Depending on how the viewer is configured, the game details panel may be shown or collapsed when it first loads. Press the Hide Details button to collapse it and give the board more room; the button then reads Show Details, and pressing it again brings the panel back. When a viewer holds several games, the chosen state is kept as you switch between them.

Switching between games

When a single [penguin] block contains more than one game — for example a Lichess study or a round report — a Game drop-down appears in the top bar. Choose a game to load its details, moves and board position. The board orientation, details visibility and annotation visibility you have chosen are kept as you move between games.

Flipping the board

By default the board is shown from White's point of view, with the white pieces along the bottom and the black pieces along the top. Press Flip Board to turn it around so the black pieces are at the bottom and the white pieces at the top; press it again to return to the default orientation. The chosen orientation is kept as you step through the moves.

Showing and hiding annotations

By default the moves panel shows everything the PGN carries alongside the moves: human comments, Lichess computer-analysis text (such as “Blunder. Na5 was best.”), annotation symbols (!, ?, ⩲, and so on) and the coloured move-quality styling from Lichess analysis. Press Annotations to hide all of these and leave only the bare moves and variation lines; press it again to bring the annotations back. Variations remain available and can still be followed when annotations are hidden. When a viewer holds several games, the chosen state is kept as you switch between them.

Evaluation bar

When the PGN includes engine evaluations, a horizontal bar beneath the board shows who stands better in the current position, from White's point of view. The white portion grows from the left as White's advantage increases and shrinks as Black takes over. The number in the centre is the score: a value prefixed with + favours White, − favours Black, 0.0 is equal, and a value such as #5 indicates forced mate. The bar is hidden for games that contain no evaluations.

Moves and variations

Click any move in the moves panel — on the main line or inside a variation — to jump straight to that position; the board and highlighted move update to match. Alternative lines branch off the main line and appear in brackets within the panel. Click a variation's opening move to enter that line from the start, or click any move within the variation to land on that position directly. Continue stepping forward to play through the line, or click a main-line move to return to the principal continuation.

Controls

The control buttons change which position is shown on the board, and the highlighted move updates to match:

• « Start — jumps to the initial position before the first move.
• ‹ Back — steps back one move.
• + Autoplay — toggles automatic playback, advancing one move at a time until the end of the line; press again to stop.
• › Forward — steps forward one move.
• » End — jumps to the final position of the current line.

Click anywhere on the viewer and use the left and right arrow keys to step backward and forward. On smaller screens the moves panel shrinks to fit the remaining viewport height so the board and current move stay visible; only the panel scrolls, not the whole page.

Annotation symbols

Penguin translates numeric PGN annotation codes into the symbols below. Press Annotations in the top bar to hide or show them together with comments and Lichess move-quality colours.

Credits

Penguin chess viewer, version 1.0.8.
Author: Paul Hampton, Timegalore Ltd, www.timegalore.co.uk. Copyright © 2026.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later.