A marker is an indicator of some chess characteristic that can be turned on or off for each game in the database. There are 21 user-settable markers that markers that one may set for each game. These markers will be used used mainly as part of complex searches in the database, or for game list filter purposes. Since all the user-settable markers have no significance, you can use them for any purpose that suits your needs.

The markers and their symbols in detail:

The last two markers are not user-settable, they will be set automatically if a game contains illegal castlings or even other illegal moves (for example the king is moving into check) within the main line. If a game is marked with both only the marker Illegal Move will be displayed.

There are also special markers which are not user-settable, the deletion marker, the changed marker, and the newly added marker. A game marked with the deletion marker will be removed when next the database is compacted (⇒ Database switcher: Compact). This marker will be retained after closing the database. The changes marker means that this game has been changed (and saved), and the newly added marker is denoting a newly added game. Both markers will be lost as soon as the database is closed.

When editing games from Scid databases (.si4) Scidb is supporting the six special user defined markers (1..6). But it is recommended not to use these markers, because unsolvable problems will ocurr when copying games to other databases; even the application Scid cannot solve these problems.

When reading ChessBase databases both markers Strategical Blunder and Tactical Blunder will be mapped to the common marker Blunder. Scidb does not distinguish between these two characteristics.