What is the best way to build a chess opening repertoire? In a nutshell my approach looks like this: Finding some openings for white and black I like in general (= fits my playing style).
I’m doing this either by searching opening databases online, going to a bookstore and browsing through some opening books or asking some other chess players.Looking for chess books covering these openings and buying them (making sure I cover all potential systems which my opponent could play).Reading through these books and figuring out which middle game positions I like.Checking which move orders enforce these middle games. That’s more or less how I built my own repertoire (and still extend it). As you can see I’m hardly using any chess engines for a long time in the process and actually no game database at all. I must be an exotic! Game databases matter? Like I said I’m not really using game databases to build my repertoire today. Speeding up the process You can save some time and money if you buy repertoire books. Another approach: importing games. The power of CPT’s unique repertoire concept.
I’m not only developing CPT, but I'm an active chess player too.
Recently I’ve started with the preparation of the upcoming season. This year I wanted to take advantage of the new repertoire concept, which CPT 4 introduced. Although I’m the author of the program I sometimes discover new things myself. I bought several eBooks and imported them all into CPT - each into a separate opening (please check out the other blog post about how to create a chess repertoire). Now, there are some specific features which really make my life as a chess player much easier and actually give me confidence that my just created repertoire is really complete.
Insights 1: For openings a position database beats a game database hands down Many chess books follow an approach where they explain certain variations by model games. If you only follow model games it is easy to miss alternative moves for a specific position. Insights 2: Auto-detection of transpositions across openings Now we get to my personal favorite.
Chess-DB. Chess GYM - Tactics & Exercises. Canal de ICCchessFM. GameKnot. Chess Gallery. The Best Online Sources To Play & Learn Chess. I love playing chess and collecting chessboards and like everything else, my enjoyment of the game has moved online.
As well as playing installed software chess games, I also have some favourite chess websites where I like to meet other players from around the world for a game or two. After all, it gets boring eventually playing against a computer. Sometimes, it’s good to play against a real live human being. So here are some of the places where I like to play chess online. Later, I will also discuss some of the places where I have learned some chess tactics. But one place which I will not talk about is Yahoo Games (in case anyone starts getting worked up in the comments).
So here’s the three places I use for my chess fix : ItsYourTurn I wrote about ItsYourTurn back in September last year and it’s great for playing chess. I personally have 10 games going on at one time – I make one move on each game every morning then I don’t go back to it until the next morning. Chess Diagram Setup. Houdini Chess Engine. Welcome to the Houdini Chess Engine home page.
Houdini is a state-of-the-art chess engine for Windows combining outstanding positional evaluation with the most sophisticated search algorithm. The name Houdini was chosen because of the engine's positional style, its tenacity in difficult positions and its ability to defend stubbornly and escape with a draw – sometimes by the narrowest of margins.
On the other hand Houdini will often use razor-sharp tactics to deny its opponents escape routes when it has the better position. At the time of writing Houdini leads all the major Computer Chess rating lists and is widely considered to be the strongest chess engine on the planet. From numerous interviews it appears that many top Grand Masters and World Champions use and appreciate Houdini. Follow the development of the Houdini Chess Engine on Facebook: Houdini 4: The Best Got Even Better! A major feature is the support of the new 6-men Syzygy table bases. Opening Database. Chess Diagram Generator. BabasChess - Free Internet Chess Client for Windows. Free chess analysis software. Biblioteca de Ajedrez. ChessBase News.