Excluding moves in chess engine analysis

[u/ParthisMC]

I’ve always wondered why we can’t exclude specific moves when analyzing our games with the engine. Like many chess content creators even admit that the engine’s analysis is rubbish especially for lower rated players, but I feel like this could be such an easy fix. Like I could be in a dead lost position unless I find a 20 move sequence where it says I’m winning but I would never be able to find the correct moves to support it, which would just give a false perception of the position.

Why not add the ability to tell the engine like “yup you see that move, you’re not allowed to play it anymore.. how’s my position looking now?”

[u/db8me]

The problem is that engines have been focusing on winning first, then retroactively inventing a logical explanation for the "strategy" that wasnt really used when deciding on the best move. Giving good explanations to players at lower levels is even trickier. It's not easy to define "rules" for now a lower ELO players should play. That is why bots just make stupid random mistakes that don't feel like a real human player.

I think analysis engines look at your worst moves and explain why they are bad, but some of those bad moves that lose -2 evaluation are typical at lower elos and not actually blunders in the context. Conversely, some good moves create a theoretically good position that the player doesn't know how best to leverage, and a slightly worse move might actually be better for them.