Ah yes, Mikhail. It is gud to see you dokument suche things. I truly wish to see you improof. You have such potentials to play this game. I am very glad I can help you praktice your openingz. But do not forget the middles and the ends, no?
удача
Ivan
Just keep track of the positions you reach from openings you play, and the positions that are better should be remembered, so you know to play that opening more often. Just keep track in your head...
A pgn database is what I use, but I haven't stored my whole repertoire on it. Alot of it is just in my head and my books. It's nice to a pgn database since it makes reviewing lines easier when preparing for a tournament, + you can invoke computer analysis to evaluate lines and make reccomendations as well. You can also use your chess program and database to look at master games played using that line.
A pgn database is what I use, but I haven't stored my whole repertoire on it. Alot of it is just in my head and my books. It's nice to a pgn database since it makes reviewing lines easier when preparing for a tournament, + you can invoke computer analysis to evaluate lines and make reccomendations as well. You can also use your chess program and database to look at master games played using that line.
How do you store pgn files in a database? And how do you incorporate this into a program to study? Sorry if these appear to be silly questions; but I would like to study my games to help figure out my weaknesses and strengths [if any ;)]
Skip
A pgn database is what I use, but I haven't stored my whole repertoire on it. Alot of it is just in my head and my books. It's nice to a pgn database since it makes reviewing lines easier when preparing for a tournament, + you can invoke computer analysis to evaluate lines and make reccomendations as well. You can also use your chess program and database to look at master games played using that line.
How do you store pgn files in a database? And how do you incorporate this into a program to study? Sorry if these appear to be silly questions; but I would like to study my games to help figure out my weaknesses and strengths [if any ;)]
Skip
I was talking specifically about a chess database. Lots of chess databases (all of them?) allow you to store PGN files/games. How you use that resource for study depends on a lot of things, perhaps beginning with what kind of database it is - a personal db of your own games, or a collection of grandmaster games, etc.
I have no problem evaluating my personal-game database to see where I've been the most successful, openings-wise. But I've got some doubts about using it to record a bunch of 'here's what I'd do' lines in one or more game files for white and black.
Try Chess Position Trainer at chesspositiontrainer.com. It's a very useful free program that you can store your repertoire in. If you want to, you can practice it as well. It notices transpositions, and there are different levels of training you can choose. You should at least try this program - after all, it's free.
Here's an example of the one-game per colour approach. It's just a start, based on the assumption that what I'd really like to play as white is an Evans Gambit (main line). Everything else is an off-shoot, and most of those lines are not yet entered yet. (This is about as far as I generally get before it starts to look like dog-food to me and I lose heart.)
Maybe multiple game files for each major opening makes more sense.
Excel is lacking because, as happyfanatic mentions above, it's nice to be able to jump directly into computer analysis for a given position.
What would be perfect is some kind of sophisticated tree editor in a chess program. I think Rybka Aquarium might have something like that, but alas, I'm a Mac guy.
Try Chess Position Trainer at chesspositiontrainer.com. It's a very useful free program that you can store your repertoire in. If you want to, you can practice it as well.
Thank you. That is awesome looking. Almost makes me wish I was a Windows user.. 
One of the most important features for me is the ability to create opening keys that allow you to navigate back and forth between different variations in your repertoire, and view statistics as to how you (or another player) have done with that variation in practice. The best tool that I have seen for this is Chessbase. Mig Greengard first broke the story about how Garry Kasparov structures his repertoire inside Chessbase in this article:
Mig on Garrybase
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mig23.pdf
And Steve Lopez elaborated on how to do it in this series.
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2340
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2341
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2342
A blogger named Grandpatzer has also written on how to build a repertoire:
http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/10/using-chessbases-repertoire-database.html
Another blogger, Sancho Pawnza has written on how to prune your repertoire down to a manageable size using Chessbase opening keys and Mike Leahy's Chess Openings Wizard program:
http://sanchopawnza.blogspot.com/2005/11/pruning-lines.html
Eric Schiller touches on how to use classifiers in Chess Assistant to divide a database by variation:
http://chesscountry.com/pdfs/Creating%20an%20Opening%20Key%20with%20Chess%20Assistant.pdf
It would appear that in Chess Assistant, you are unable to apply the list of classifiers from one archive to a new archive, as you can do with opening keys in Chessbase.
The developer of Chess Position Trainer has announced that he is going to include a "variations" feature somewhat like an opening key in the next version of CPT due out early next year.
Thanks, rigamagician! That's great info. I now have access to Windows, so I'm planning to get back into CPT ASAP. :)
Cheers
Just a separate pgn file for each opening.
Thanks, Natalia.
Separate game for each variation or one game with variation lines?
As far as I can tell, the only real advantage to the former option is that you can use the PGN as a personalized opening book with chess software more easily.
I use CPT and love it
I use CPT and love it
It's very lovable - especially at that price. :) One cool thing is that, once you've got your repertoire somewhat defined, you can always output it as PGN.
On Macs, doesn't Sigma Chess or Exachess have a repertoire feature similar to an opening key?
Nice info on CPT, will have to check it out. I tend to play a lot of similar openings that transpose into each other, and I play them both as white and black, so I'm hoping it will detect 'colors reversed' scenarios.
Nice info on CPT, will have to check it out. I tend to play a lot of similar openings that transpose into each other, and I play them both as white and black, so I'm hoping it will detect 'colors reversed' scenarios.
CPT is great with transpositions because it doesn't store "lines"; it stores positions.
Unfortunately, I'm having some issues with it under Windows 7 (just me?). It might be that I'm running Windows on a virtual machine with Parallels. I should check the forums, I guess.
I just checked the forums and read the documentation, CPT doesn't handle 'colors-reversed' transpositions in the current version, but there are plans for it in version 4, which looks like is coming out next year sometime. Going to have to check this out!
cpt is nice in some ways but its buggy. i have lost my whole repertoire several times because of bugs forcing me to reinstall. you should backup often. another choice is the version on www.bookup.com it cost a little but its very good. i know peter svidler uses it or at least the page says so
...or do you?
As always, I'm trying to hammer out the foundation for my opening repertoire, and as always, I have this desire to see it all written down somehow.
Things I've explored:
- Microsoft Excel
- An online mind-mapping editor (just opening names, not moves)
- A pgn database with a separate 'game' for each relevant opening (for instance, one game as White to detail 1. e4 e5, another for 1. e5 c6, etc.)
- A pgn database with only one game for each colour and the different off-shoot openings handled in branched lines
They all have their pros/cons.
Since I can't consult this artifact during actual (OTB) play anyway, should I just be doing this in my head?
I'm interested to hear what others have done. Cheers!