Engames and note-taking

I've been wondering what the best way to take chess notes is, particularly when it comes to endgames. I've searched around these forms and the internet and haven't really gotten a satisfactory answer to this. 

I get a lot out of watching endgame videos, but usually the content is so dense that I forget a lot of it after a couple weeks. What works best for me is having something I can quickly review (rather than watching the full video again every time). I tried taking notes with OneNote/Evernote, but I realized that it's a lot easier to follow ideas with a diagram, so I went through the very annoying process of copying and pasting images of the board into my notes, but this approach isn't sustainable. 

I'm also thinking of following along the video with Chessbase or HIARCS and basically taking notes as annotations in the games. But then one downside I see is that it would be hard to keep everything in one file. In a video on rook and pawn endgames for example, there will be discussion of how to approach the situation with a rook pawn, a knight pawn, etc. This would require creating multiple games in Chessbase/HIARCS. 

Curious to hear what others are doing. For the record, I fully understand the need to practice extensively to improve at endgames, and I am doing that as well, but I would find it extremely useful to be able to quickly refer to notes to understand the general themes/ideas in a particular position. 

For the record, I think this question would be valid for opening/midgame positions as well, but right now my focus is on endgames

Thanks for your advice DeirdreSkye! Let me ask my question another way: if I follow your advice exactly, I would still want to somehow take notes on the lines I went through over the board. The reason is because no matter how focused I am in that session, I would need to go through the lines once or twice in the following weeks/months to really make sure they are committed to memory. I'm looking for advice on the best way to do that. Are you saying that you just write down the lines with pen+paper and then refer back to that later?

Deirdre is correct in recommending 3d over 2d chess study.   

This is a very interesting question to me, too, and I've been pondering it for the last few months. Most of my chess notes are incorporated into my repertoire text file, especially in the form of textual flags on which I can search. For example, if I'm looking for all games where Black played ...Nf6 (in the opening) to attack White's undefended e-pawn and to pressure White to respond with Nc3, which creates a slight disadvantage for White in that he has now blocked his c-pawn, I can look for the text "nf6-forcing-blocking-nc3" and pull up all games quickly that have that feature. (Two examples are Philidor's Defense Exchange Variation and the Sicilian Defense.)

My plan is to do the same thing with endgames, so that I can use a single file for both openings and endgames, both searchable by such descriptive strings. For example I might use "k-p-ending-requiring-overcross" or "cross-check-in-endgame" to find endgames with those patterns. However, I have not even started on that part of my repertoire yet. For the time being, I'm just reviewing "Pandofini's Endgame Course" to refresh my memory on the tricks used for certain types of endings.

Hi everyone, David from Chessable here. Just wanted to address some criticism posted here. I initially wanted to stay away from this as there is a lot of work to do to keep improving the site (we always are the first ones to admit that we can improve). However, DeirdreSkye's view really needs the other side of the coin.

First I want to say that the book that the 1.d4 Deidre is talking about was one of the first things we released on the site, it's part of the very first version of Chessable. It's unfair to equate the site with this one book which perhaps could use with a revamp (despite many enjoying it as it is, 4.85 stars out of 150 ratings). This book must be viewed for what it is, a minimum viable product when no one knew if Chessable would last beyond the few months that followed. Now, we are here to stay.

Since then we have listened to feedback and improved the site by leaps and bounds. As anyone who has studied any of our Short & Sweet FREE series will attest, all the books are filled with instructional comments, discussion of plans and motifs and all the rest. These are really useful FREE books that we have developed to give back to the community. People are asking questions about positions, other members are answering. Sometimes the author pops by and answers too. Can you get that in a print book?

Moreover, users such as Deirdre have always, since day 1 had the opportunity to write and ask the author a question. Why is this move played? Why is another move not better? What are the plans and motifs? The facilities were there, and many have used it and gotten a direct response from John.

As with any study tool, it's not only about the tool but also about how you choose to use it. If you superficially learn to use Chessable and use it lazily as Deirdre describes, I won't be surprised if you don't get any better (although in theory science says you should, our brains are good at figuring out things in the background, but that's another story).

If you really put effort in to make the most of it though, you will enjoy Chessable and improve as much as many of our members already have. On that note, you will never find me claiming Chessable is already the perfect product. In fact, you will find me claiming otherwise, which is good, as it means we will keep improving. We pride ourselves in constant change and innovation. Our single goal is to make sure we make learning chess easier and we will continue working towards that. We'll only know whether we have achieved this mighty goal when we complete our ambitious plans, we are nowhere near done... stay tuned!

If anyone wants to discuss more, please e-mail me at hello@chessable.com as I seldom frequent forums, but just wanted to add our "2 cents" from this end of the table. Thanks guys.
-David

Think of it like this.  Take notes like you are in school, and your teacher is discusisng something.  Write down things you want to learn/understand/know.  if somethig doesnt make sense, rewatch the video to fill in the gaps, just as you would with a book at school.

Your Chessbase will easily handle the number of games you want to create with your annotations.

Also, you might want to consider Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, which has an electronic version you would view through Chessbase - http://en.chessbase.com/post/dvoretsky-s-endgame-manual-chessbase-edition

I have been using a XP-Pen Star G640 drawing tablet to take notes in Microsoft Onenote for the past year or two .