Editing Smart Game Format (section)

== About the format ==

An SGF file is composed of pairs of properties and property values, each of which describes a feature of the game. A partial list of properties appears below.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://red-bean.com/sgf/ |title=SGF file format FF[4]|publisher=red-bean.com|date=6 August 2006|access-date=2 June 2023}}</ref>
{|class="wikitable"
|-
|AB
|Add Black: locations of Black stones to be placed on the board prior to the first move
|-
|AW
|Add White: locations of White stones to be placed on the board prior to the first move.
|-
|AN
|Annotations: name of the person commenting the game.
|-
|AP
|Application: application that was used to create the SGF file (e.g. CGOban2,...).
|-
|B
|a move by Black at the location specified by the property value.
|-
|BR
|Black Rank: rank of the Black player.
|-
|BT
|Black Team: name of the Black team.
|-
|C
|Comment: a comment.
|-
|CP
|Copyright: copyright information.
|-
|DT
|Date: date of the game.
|-
|EV
|Event: name of the event (e.g. 58th [[Honinbō]] Title Match).
|-
|FF
|File format: version of SGF specification governing this SGF file.
|-
|GM
|Game: type of game represented by this SGF file. A property value of 1 refers to Go.
|-
|GN
|Game Name: name of the game record.
|-
|HA
|Handicap: the number of [[Go handicaps|handicap]] stones given to Black. Placement of the handicap stones are set using the AB property.
|-
|KM
|Komi: [[Komidashi|komi]].
|-
|ON
|Opening: information about the opening ([[Fuseki]]), rarely used in any file.
|-
|OT
|Overtime: overtime system.
|-
|PB
|Black Name: name of the black player.
|-
|PC
|Place: place where the game was played (e.g.: Tokyo).
|-
|PL
|Player: color of player to start.
|-
|PW
|White Name: name of the white player.
|-
|RE
|Result: result, usually in the format "B+R" (Black wins by resign) or "B+3.5" (black wins by 3.5).
|-
|RO
|Round: round (e.g.: 5th game).
|-
|RU
|Rules: ruleset (e.g.: Japanese).
|-
|SO
|Source: source of the SGF file.
|-
|SZ
|Size: size of the board, non-square boards are supported.
|-
|TM
|Time limit: time limit in seconds.
|-
|US
|User: name of the person who created the SGF file.
|-
|W
|a move by White at the location specified by the property value.
|-
|WR
|White Rank: rank of the White player.
|-
|WT
|White Team: name of the White team.
|-
|}

There is no strict checking of the contents of these tags, so it is possible to put any text into the result tag for example.

Variations are nested in brackets, and also usually assigned letters. The first branch (variation A) is the main branch.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://red-bean.com/sgf/var.html |title=SGF - Variations|publisher=red-bean.com|date=7 January 1999|access-date=2 June 2023}}</ref> This notation stems from [[Newick format]].