People who overuse "!"

I am unsure of what exactly the correct use of "!" is. I know that it is at least supposed to be the best move, but nowadays it is common practice to only use it if the move is supposed to be hard to find or impressive looking as well.

However, it looks like in previous generations "!" was a much more common annotation to. I wonder if some long-time chess players can talk about whether or not this was the case.

For example, I will see annotations like this:

What about any of those moves warrants a "!". I see moves like Re1 and think "What else was white supposed to play?" But I have seen that very move marked with a "!". 

Other times, I see situations like this:

How is playing a simple queen fork a "!" move? Rather, white's move should be marked "?" or "??"

Another thing I see is player's need to mark any sort of sacrifce, no matter how shallow, with "!" or "!!". For example:

I will see players mark a move like that with "!!" because they believe any move that involves a piece taking a protected piece of lesser value warrnts a "!" or "!!".

Another example is playing very simple:

YES, I know a queen is taking a protected knight. Does that move really warrant a "!!"? It seems like a rather elementary tactic.

And I know that grandmasters would find a lot of tactics simple that I would find "!", so I am not saying that there should be a strict scale. But I'm only talking about the most basic of tactics here

This isn't even a tactic, it's just playing a mate in 1 that your opponent hanged. Yet I see people annotate "!" simply for checkmates that either don't include a queen or are just especially clever looking.

So is there any sort of standard on this? It is of course my opinion that these are overused, but perhaps I am underusing them. Is there any sort of consensus on when it is appropriate to use "!" and when it is trite or patronizing to include it in a rather basic move?

I have been playing competitively a very long time.   I never saw exclams on your first example for any of those moves of a Ruy Lopez.

I guess those exclams arose when the Ruy was in its early stages and people were just discovering what the best moves were.    Otherwise opening books would contain tens of thousands or more of exclams. 

In today's world, as in the past, when new twists are found in the opening, they will initially be rewarded with an exclam.    

exclams and question marks bring attention to that move or sequence of moves as being critical.    The important part is the thought process behind them.

and to a computer, what constitutes an exclam ?    A move it would take 10 times as long to find than another ?    For us humans, we appreciate subtle and cunning moves, which to a computer falls into a category of just ordinary or perhaps "bad" moves.

So I guess you prefer the people who overuse '?'.... Good for you, anyway.

Fred Reinfeld was the Master of the exclamation mark !!!!!!!!!

I think when players 100 years ago were giving exclaims to moves it was because the player felt the move was very principled. Not in a simple way like develop your pieces, but principled in the context of their current strategic understanding. Sometimes this understanding was deep... and other times it was incorrect. It depends on the strength of the player and limitations of chess understanding for that time period.

In the present day, my experience is that books for lower rated players are more liberal with exclaim use. I suppose the author wants to further highlight a pattern or idea.

But yes, it does depend on the author. As you said sometimes it's merely because a strong move is unexpected. Sometimes it's only when a move is best. Some authors will tell you their criteria in the beginning of the book.

My favorite criteria is when:
 - It's the only move that maintains the evaluation (another way of saying best move I suppose)

Although this is more useful in endgames than openings... otherwise almost any of white's first moves would get an exclaim heh.

---

So I guess even after you choose your audience and set your criteria it may still depend on the position

Rules of modern game annotation:

1. Lots of !!!

2. Lots of use of the word "epic"

3. Always use the word "great"

4. Make sure your posts are all about you!!!!

And what about people who overuse ","?

‽

If we could give the bottom dot of the interrobang a tail, we'd be set for all our punctuation needs.

The more I try to format this comment, the worse it gets.

"interrobang"

lol

I love that that's what it's actually called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang

I think it depends a lot on your audience. Indeed, your entire annotations should be focused at a specific rating range. If I were teaching a completely beginner, I would certainly give Qxd7 in your third example at least an exclamation mark. If I was writing for an expert, I might right "the obvious refutation of black's last move". If I was writing for a grandmaster, I might not write anything at all.

An exclamation mark is sometimes meant to draw attention to a move, not necessarily because to find the move you had to wade through lenghty complex variations or because it was a brilliant positional decision. 

That's awesome.

THE USAGE OF "!" IS ACCEPTABLE FOR ANY STRONG OR NOTABLE MOVE, BUT OVERUSE WILL SIMPLY DRAW ATTENTION TO TOO MANY MOVES AND NOT FOCUS ON THE MOST INTERESTING ONES!

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