CPT Community

Hello Stefan,

Many thanks for your program CPT 3.2. I have only one small problem with it, why does CPT not support UCI engines? It is the defacto standard now and xboard is no longer supported by almost all strong engines out there. This is a serious limitation since crafty is very rarely used for analysis these days and keeps many like me from actually using CPT like you intended.

Even still, CPT is a well thought out program and once again thank you for free gift to the chess community. Hope you will remedy this in future releases if possible.

Regards
Jake

Hello Steffan,

Thanx alot for your dream-come-true program.

Training Options are so abundant but there is one VERY IMPORTANT thing that's missing:   The ability to examine the continuation after u made a BAD MOVE. Its the best way to undestand why the move is not recommended.

thanx again =)

Hello Jake,

thanks! I agree with you. Well, Spike is a not such a bad alternative though. However, rest assure that CPT 4 will have UCI support (and a professional database system).

Regards,

Stefan

Hello JhorAVi,

interesting suggestion. So you basically would enter the "bad" variation in your repertoire and during training CPT would just show you that your variation is lost and where you went wrong. This would be specially interesting in scenarios where you want to create repertoires for chess pupils.

I will put this one on the suggestion list.

Regards,

Stefan

Love the new website.  Very professional looking.  Just need to get some of the cool How-tos back up, like how to analyze your rep with an engine.

Hello Stefan,

More power to the best Position Training Software ever produced! I have tons of ideas to make it perfect but I only limit to those important ones that I believe easy to implement and won’t give you much headache 


MORE OPTIONS FOR TRAINING CENTER:

1. TRAIN_CONFIG: A feature to Create, Save and Activate my own TrainingMode configurations. (Example: “Blindfold Sicilian Drill against Topalov”)
Also, a separate configuration for each sub-repertoire must be remembered by the program.

2. TRAIN_AGAINST_PLAYER: A feature in TrainingMode that can be set to respond moves from games (of a player, opening or any query from the database) that I want to test with or against.
Of course this is currently possible by manually filtering games to a sub-repertoire but it takes time & requires many steps.

3. TRAIN_AND_EDIT: A button that temporarily halts TrainingMode to switch back to the MainScreen while retaining the current board position. It allows immediate correction or addition of variations that TrainingMode did not see in the book. Then another button to resume TrainingMode back to the point where it was suspended (now with the newly edited or added candidates). This allows quick fixes in the opening and is a lot more practical than to close TrainingMode then find the doubtful positions 1 by 1 (hoping I can remember all of them.)

4. SKIP_VARIATION: A button in TrainingMode that can skip the remaining moves from the current position and proceed to another. This saves time in positions where an overwhelming advantage is already achieved while the remaining variation is still long. No more regrets why I extracted very long variations in the book for the sake of completeness.

Two options are needed:
“POSTPONE” Simply postpones the testing of the current variation for now & proceed to another. Then go back to it some time latter.
"SKIP FOR THIS SESSION" Skip the current variation for the entire session"

6. FORCE_CANDIDATE: Sometimes, I don’t want to be disturbed by being forced to play another correct candidate that TrainingMode wants because I want to concentrate first with a certain line before going with his. TrainingMode should give me the option to continue the candidate I want rather than auto enters what it wants.

7. EXCLUDE_VARIATION: An option in CandidateMoveWindow to mark a candidate or variation that I don’t want to include in TrainingMode. Examples are variations that I don’t want to erase but I find too easy or needles to be included in TrainingMode.

8. TRAIN_AND_UNDERSTAND: Moves are easier to remember if TrainingMode can properly react to different move symbols. For example:

“?” Informs that I made a bad move then continues the variation (auto play) to see where I went wrong or temporarily switch sides and let me play against my own bad move!

“!” Gives an applause or indication telling I found a good move.

“+-“ Gives sound or indication telling that I’m in a winning position. Or a short summary after the leaf of the variation is achieved. Example: "The final position is reached with a slight advantage for white"

These seemingly fancy ideas promote better understanding about the situation on the board in a way that makes it easier to remember rather than resort to pure memorization.

9. FINISH_TRAINING: Currently, there’s no way to define when a single TrainingMode Session should End. Possible options are:

a. End after a desired percentage is acquired,
b. End after the allotted time has expired.
c. End when there’s no more error.


OTHER SUGGESTIONS:

10. I suggest a proper Dialog or Hourglass that tells us to wait while CPT is BC processing something because the whole interface is unresponsive during full CPU utilization that I don’t know when to start clicking buttons again.

11. The “Left” & “Right” Arrows for move navigation doesn’t work if another window is in focus. Maybe assigning them exclusive keys like “<” & “>” will do the trick!

12. We need a button that not only takes back a move, but also cancels the move just made. It deletes the whole variation starting from the current position. (A red button found in ChessAssistant)

13. A smaller version of toolbar buttons save more space for a bigger chessboard. An option to toggle off the coordinates will also help.

14. There’s no use of having a separate data for "POSITION COMMENTS" & another COMMENTS in the CandidateMovesWindow. Just combine them and mirror each others contents for simplicity.

15. CandidateMovesWindow is too wide. Why not add columns for the:

a. computer evaluation,
b. no of games that mode is played
c. Latest year the move was played with players rating
d. Rating of the strongest player who made the move with date

Very useful in determining the reliability & popularity of the move.

16. The computer evaluation in PositionData must also include Depth and NodeCount to give us confidence of its reliability. It also allows us to update only those shallows searches in the future.

17. BEST_LINES: A Best Line version of CandidateMovesWindow that displays an entire row of best lines for each candidate (found in Chessbase). Very helpful for examining variations without the need to navigate them.

18. The Engine Window should display list of different candidate lines sorted from best to worse (like the engine window in chessbase) rather than a series of same moves of different depth. It’s a helpful reference in further adding Candidate Moves

19. An Engine shootout from the current position until a desired advantage or number of moves is achieved. The whole variation + evaluations can be added as candidate.

20. The PositionData allows defining marks but I can’t locate where the marks are displayed. Better provide an additional column for marks in the Candidates.

21. Color Coding for each move in the candidate and not just for the arrows.

22. An ELO rating style of presenting my overall points to promote motivation & encouragement.

23. I hope that the inclusion of CAP data is possible. But I can live without it for now.


BUGS:

24. The program "exists with error" if u DELETE a first move from a NewGamePosition.




I hope my suggestions help :=)

JhorAVi

Hello JhorAVi,

this is one hell of a post - thanks for taking the time!

1) love it!
2) CPT 4 will support game database functionality. This features fits into this category.
3) Good suggestion. I find myself wishing something like that quite often too.
4) Easy enough to add. Btw. don't miss the option under 'Variation Mode' where you can set the max. moves you want to be trained in (one of my favorite options if I might say so). This way you can quickly train a new sub-repertoire evenly and imrprove your knowledge step by step.
7) This is already possible. Check the position window in the main window. By default each position is marked as 'for training', but you can change this anytime without having to delete the move. With CPT 4 this will further improved.
8) good ideas
9) I like this ideas too. They fit into some other plans I have very well.
... some more valid points
14) I think it makes sense to have to different comment types, but maybe I'm wrong. IMO if you read a chess book there are some comments regarding a position and some regarding the move played like ('this leads to a lost position'). Now you have to take into account that thanks to transposition you might reach the same position by 2 variations. If you have only a position comment it is possible that the text makes only sense for certain previous candidate moves, but for others not. Having two comment fields gives us more freedom.
15) will be added with the game database support in CPT 4
16) good point
17) I like this one too!
18-19) engine stuff will improve
20) the marks are only used for navigational and training reasons. The implementation will change with CPT 4 though
21) on my list
22) now this is a challenge! :)
23) we will see. I'm not sure if it is legal to integrate it. Also I would need quite some free space to host these big files.
24) check the forum. If you can 100% reproduce it I will be able to fix it quickly probably. As a work-around you can use the main menu move->delete to avoid the problem

Thanks again for taking the time!

Regards,

Stefan

Hello again Stefan,

    Thanx for your positive response. I hope you concider too my few more updates resulting from my continous addiction of your program.

1. REWIND:    An additional button in TrainingMode that allows to Rewind any number of moves back from the current position but still resume training! TrainingMode may offer thesame problem or choose another variation.
   This allows full freedom on the Repetition process which is the key to more effective memorization.

2:    SNAPPY_ TRAINING:    The uninterruptible move animations, arrow animations, and timed delays during TrainingMode make the whole system slow and unresponsive! I suggest that instead of waiting for the opponents move animation to finish, immediately reply (by clicking or dragging a piece) should skip all ongoing animations & timed delays at once! This allows us to blitz through the opening as fast as we want!
Also, after some failures to make the correct move, TrainingMode must still require us to manualy move the correct suggestion rather than it being autoplayed. This cuts down more seconds of waiting stages.

3. The Rows in the CandidateMovesWindow are not supposed to expand into multiline even if they contain long comments or else its terrible size will affect the entire row! (I discovered this after downloading the free RuyLopez repertoire) Its big contents are best fitted to POSITION COMMNENTS WINDOW.

Regards and More Power!!

JhorAVi

Thanks for continuing to work on Chess Position Trainer!
Nice new site!!!

Can't wait til we see the next version!

Oh I had to chime in here and put my two cents in!  Ok, Ok, I'll do the UCI stuff and try to get it in for the next version of CPT.... Gregory :)

Hello Stefan,

Nice program you have done. It is addictive.

I just want to comment on the 3rd suggestion of JhorAVI. Maybe you limit the move comment into maximum of 2 lines but give a feature to be able to open another window, like the position comment window, which shows the move comment after the move has been done. This way, even a comment with enormous lines will be fitted unlike when the comment is included in the candidate move's list.

Also, perhaps, you want to add some sound alert if there is any move comment or position comment in their respective windows. It is easy to miss some comments when you are so focused in the board portion.

Regards and more power!

Bill

Hello Stefan,

CPT is truly unmatched in variety of Opening Training-Options. But I cant set the Training-Options to work with Tacitical & Endgame problems. The only way i found was to go through the Wizard with limited flexibility.

With better Training-Options for chess problems like Tactics & Endgames, CPT is set to surpass Convektas "Total Chess Training" softwares the same way as how it surpassed Bookup!

It assures that all phases of the game are covered that makes CPT slowly mature into an all around chess package allowing authors of all kinds of training books start porting their materials to CPT =)

I can visualize a future where the only chess software you'll need is CPT!

More Power!

JhorAVi

@Bill
Thanks for your comments. Comments in CPT need to be better handled. I will play around with some ideas.

@Jhor

Hey, Jhor,

I see you read between the lines of my other blog post? :)

I absolutely agree wit you that CPT has to improve in the area of endgames & tactical games. There are some planned features, but don't hesitate to let me know what you think is most needed.

For the moment: Please let me know what you try right now and I will see if it is already possible.

Stefan

To improve tactical training it would be nice to be able to disable the demo mode.
Great work guys !

Hello Eric,

you can turn-off the demo-mode in the training options. Check the tab 'variation mode' and there 'How do you want the variations to be played?'.

Regards,

Stefan

Hello Stefan,

OK i have managed to make my tactical puzzles working properly by selecting "only positions with names" in the Selection tab :-)

But i wish PGN-IMPORT should provide an option to categorize each sub-repertoire into one of the three basic types of TrainingMode behaviors:
1.) CHESS PROBLEMS (tactics & endgames).
2.) INSTRUCTIONAL GAMES (List of complete games used for Solitaire Chess. Made famous by Bruce Pandolfini & ChessMentor)
3.) OPENING REPERTOIRE (the current feature of CPT)

The following are slight changes needed for TrainingCenter to accommodate the unique behavior of each catagory: Just correct me if some are already possible.

1.) CHESS PROBLEMS training: Already possible. But i have minor corrections:
a. I noticed that TrainingCenter continuously repeats the same ChessProblem (if not solved perfectly) before going to the next one.  It is supposed to consider that problem as UNSOLVED and immediately proceed to the next.
b. In Tactics, only the 1st move (fatal key-move) makes sense. Therefore, the option "jump to the worst position" is impractical (sometimes mate-in-1 positions.)
c. I wish TrainingCenter includes VCR-buttons that allows us to repeat or explore from 1 problem to the next. As well as VCR buttons for exploring moves.

2.) INSTRUCTIONAL GAMES training: Not yet possible in CPT.
a. Each game must be treated separately rather than being mixed with other games as single tree of candidates.
b. A Solitaire training should make the PositionComments available after each move. But currently, it is imposible because of the opponents auto response. A spacebar press should be required to execute the opponents reply after we read the comments.
c. VCR-buttons also applies here.

3.) OPENING REPERTOIRE training: Already great! But i have few improvements.
a. TrainingCenter should automaticaly choose the current sub-repertoire-in-use instead of providing selection about which one to choose.
b. TrainingCenter should use the current-position-on-the-board as its starting position by default.  Likewise,TrainingCenter should mirror its final position to the main screen upon exit. (very usefull)
c. I miss the move navigation buttons and the very useful "COMPLETE" button found in Bookup TrainingMode.


Many Thanx,

JhorAVi

Bravo Stefan!
  Im really happy that ChessPositionTrainer discovered what bookup have missed. Its the simple idea of marking more than one top candidate! Also, CPT's feature of using colored arrows to point candidates allows me to comfortably remain my eyes focused at the board all the time! And many others!

 I wanna comment on the preceeding post by JhorAVi. Number 3 in the last paragraph regarding vcr buttons during training makes sense. It's an old feature in bookup training wherein the vcr allowed me to manualy takeback a variation again and again until it's permanently stuckd in my memory :) There's also a button called  'complete' inorder to the skip the remaining moves.

Nice Work Guys!

Ryan

Hello Ryan,
thanks for your nice comments! How did you find out about the "more than one top candidate move"? Just curious, because while this feature is IMO indeed very useful for advanced players it is not so obviously that it exists.

Stefan

Hi! Are there any guys here managed to use UCI2WB to allow let say Rybka to work on CPT? The main reason why people is still in the dark side is because we can't use UCI engines on CPT. <a href="http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details/PolyGlot.html">UCI2WB</a>  looks like a nice interim solution but I can't make it to work.

And is it really not obviously possible? I've been adding more than one top candidate move also but I am not an advance player hehehehe.

Any comments guys?

Thanks for a great program!!! Its amazing and its free!!! Any extra that you add will just be a bonus. What in life is still free. I am totaly satisfied.

Thanks for investing your precious time to chess.

I've been reading the many nice suggestions enumerated here to make this great chess software even better. In fact, JhorAVI's ideas are just ideal! However, it seems that nobody have noticed that CPT has no print functions. So how about it, Stefan? Can we have a next-version CPT printing out ECO-style repertoire sheets which we can bring along and analyze with friends?

Even then, with or without the print functions, you still gave the chess world a mighty and wonderful piece of chess software, Stefan! And THANK YOU again for that!

Yes, JhorAvi gave me quite some home-work :) Some people wanted to have printing support and it is definately on my list. I have a dream to print my own chess books with CPT. Well, it is just a dream for the moment.

Hi Stefan

Sorry about not coming good on the linux stuff but it turns out that it was not worth the effort when the whole point of the mono project is to have a runtime that will support a .Net Library. I am sure that it would not be that difficult to keep the to in step but I would ensure that your third party controls are 100% managed..

I have just spent the last couple of hours trying to get the PolyGlot stuff working.

It turns out that there is something in the way the exe is hosted within CPT that causes  a buffer overflow (according to filemon). I am going to get a .Net Profiler on it and see if I can find out more.

As an aside have you thought about using the Composite Application Block and releasing some form of SDK like BabasChess?

Thanks and I hope you can forgive the silence

Done a quick article on http://community.chesspositiontrainer.com/forums/thread/181.aspx Demonstrates the set up for using shredder as an analysis engine I have tried Rybka and that also seems to work. Whey Hey!

@Tont: No problem. I evaluated CAB for quite some time, but eventually decided to go for a different architecture. If everything works out well it should allow scripting / plugins similiar to MS Office (probably not in the first version though).

Hello Stefan and everyone else! I'm new here so I want to start off by saying that the CPT is simply GREAT !! Infact, I can't believe anyone didn't think of it already ten years ago,since it's idea is fairly simple(but effective and addictive, I might add..).During the last few weeks I have been busy inputting my rep into it,wich is in it's entirety based upon Alburt's and Dzindzi's two books : Chess openings for

white,explained , and it's companion (same name, "for black" inserted).I'm almost done and would be happy to share this repertoire with the community!With this in mind(and a few other things),I have some questions about the program and also some suggestions for future versions!

-QUESTIONS (and some improvement suggestions) :

1. I can't find anywhere on this site a place to upload my rep nor instructions on how to do so(maybe I'm blind?),how can this be done?

2. I tried to join the community(in order to post this in one of the forums) but after filling in my info on the "join" page , the button at the bottom of the page was non-responsive,didn't work at all..But maybe I've missed something?!

3. This raises the question : Would you like to have comments and suggestions for CPT somewhere in the forums or on this blog page?

4. While entering the aforementioned rep into CPT I discovered that one can enter several "best" moves for the opponent(the side you are playin against).This is of course extremely useful as we all know that in chess, there is no one best move,only several good moves with different purposes(apart from mistakes, of course)

So my question is, how does having several best moves for the opponent in a position affect the training mode and the order in wich CPT presents variations for you to be drilled in?Or is there any difference at all (as opposed to having only one best move for the opponent)?

5. A few suggestions for training mode options :

a) I have been training one of my sub-reps until move 12(I'm learning the rep, so I don't want to learn 8 moves of some sideline and 25 moves in a Sicilian at the same time) , with the CPT showing me the line first.(very useful feature!!). But now I would like to move on and train NOT from the beginning to the end of each variation,

but from move 10 (not 12 , so my memory is refreshed as to wich moves led to the current position) to move 20, or move 11 to end of line. This should be freely configurable, one could save lots of time while in training mode.

b) The demo-mode should also be configurable with this in mind( option : "Show variations, starting from move __  , until move __ (or enf of line) . Because I don't want demo-mode to show me again moves 1-12, since I already have a position score of 100 for those moves and know those moves by heart already.

6. In training options,correct move,moves of opponent color, give us the chance to train only positions with/variations that lead to positions containing negative evaluated moves, as this would allow us to train at refuting bad moves by the opponent..So an option : " All negative evaluated moves"   would be sweet! And better yet, let us also choose " All variations that end with a negative/positive assessment for own/opponent color " (here assessment means informator symbols like + - ) . Freedom !! :)

7. UCI engine capability, and a notation window(like the one in fritz)+an analysis board(with same features as the one in fritz) , + an opening book  window(or/and an opening tab in the notation window),that  recognises and reads .ctg chessbase files and other opening books, with full statistics provided.

The CPT is for entering your repertoire and training it, but it would be even better if one could analyze with Hiarcs or Junior(for example), try out different things on the analysis board and see the theory in,for instance, Powerbook 2006(all at once on the same screen!!) These windows(and the analysis board) should be quickly minimizable and expandable to/from a taskbar in CPT.  This would add a new dimension to CPT, namely cooking your own novelties with the help of opening books and engines.Then one would have the option of  inserting the analysis(here I mean making this analysis part of you sub-repertoire) into the sub-repertoire concerned,the main line in the analysis notation translating into top candidate(BM) moves and sidelines into normal moves.(symbols like -+ and ?? that one has added in the analysis stage should also transfer into the sub-rep). Then the next logical extension would be in training mode, to have the option of training only positions with your own "cooked" opening novelties !

Let CPT become the nr. 1 software in creating your own theoretical novelties and training against possible answers by your opponent !!!  This would be huge !!!

I realize you can already do some of the above by multitasking between CPT and Fritz, but it would so much faster and easier if everything was in CPT !

Heck, if you added the option of PLAYING against UCI engines AND connecting with ICC or/and FICS , then Fritz would be dead!! Who the hell would need Fritz anymore??!! :)

8. CPT should recognise transpositions between sub-repertoires , we all know that many same positions can come about from different openings.

9. An option to exlude certain variations from training.

Well, that's about as much as I can think of now.Sorry for my post becoming quite lenghty, but I really love your program mr. Renzevitz , it has made me think quite a bit :) !

Shpongled-

Aah, I have now managed to join and sign in the community ! So it was probably due to some fault of my own that I couldn't manage to join at first.But problem fixed now!

I have a few extra questions that I didn't think of while writing my previous post :

10. How does the merging of two sub-reps affect the Best Moves ? If I merge together the Accelerated Dragon sub-rep(in standard rep downloaded from this site) with my own created Accelerated Dragon sub-rep, then wich moves will be prefferred as best moves by the program? I have several best moves for the opponent color on many occasions, but I would like to know if the best moves(for own color) that I have specified in my sub-rep will disappear(not the moves themselfe but the BM markings) or not, and what will happen to BM moves that come from the standard repertoire?

11. An obvious improvement suggestion : We need layout files and a way to save them.It is a bit disturbing to have to resize every window every time you start the program !

@Shpongled: Thanks for taking the time to post. I will answer each point later this week.

1. Check the homepage of CPT:

http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/english/Downloads/RepertoireUpload.aspx

Please note that no comments and evaluations of other authors than you are allowed to be included (for copyright reasons). It is also necessary that you made a personal selection and not copied just all variations from one book. Just wanted to make sure.

3. Best place for comments is the forum or private email unless of course you have technical problems with the forum like you had.

4. Best move is right now solely used for your side. In the training options you can set that all best moves of your side will be accepted by CPT and not just the top ranked move.

5. + 6. Thanks for the suggestion

7. UCI support is on its way. Something like an opening book as well.

8. Transpositions between sub-repertoirers are covered in CPT 4.

9. Covered in CPT 4 too.

10. If you merge 2 sub-repertoires I assume (haven't checked it yet myself) that explicitly marked best moves remain best moves. However, the top ranked move is automatically shown as best move on the fly. I'm not sure if the top ranked moves from both sub-repertoires remain best moves. I assume it will be only the one of the target sub-repertoire while merging.

11. Layout management will be even better than what you suggest in CPT 4.

I agree with you and would like to use only one software in the future too (I'm already using CPT 99% of the time I use a chess software). CPT 4 wants to get closer to this vision.

Thank you for finding the time to answer my posts! CPT 4 sounds like it will be even better and more powerful than 3.2 ! With regard to your comment about copyright I feel I must clarify a bit : the two books have merely pointed me in the right direction(concerning wich variations to use), the moves themselves are based mostly on my personal selection backed up by computer analysis and opening books.The few position comments that the rep contains are own wordings, and it doesn't have any evaluation symbols apart from things like ! and ?!, wich stem from my own analysis.

Can you hint us on when to expect CPT 4 or is this still a secret? :)

@Shpongled: Yes, still a secret, but it looks like I have a little x-mas present for you. Rumor has it that some screenshots and info will be released soon :)

Hi Stefan, I'm experiencing some problems signing in to the community again ,

the site will not accept my info and tells me my user credentials are invalid(or something like that).I'm absolutely 110% certain that I input the correct username and

password since I wrote them up on a piece of paper.So I applied for a new password

to my email   rjpaetau@hotmail.com  but nothing has come yet.

Although this is not such a huge problem, if you guys are busy working on the next CPT

then by all means give priority to that .. :)

Stefan, hope you got the email I sent you (title:a repertoire for the community).

I you feel the need to edit the textfile for any reason then feel free to do so.

-Shpongled-

Hi Shpongled,

I have updated the community software and database this morning. Maybe this was a temporarly problem for you? I just checked myself and signed out. It turned out I forgot my password so I had problems to sign in myself ;)

However, with the correct credentials I was able to sign-in again. I hope it is working for you too.

Stefan

I forgot: Yes I received the repertoire. It looks fantastic! I will post it this week. Thanks!

Stefan

I love this program, what a great gift to the chess community it is!  I am encountering what I think may be a bug in the program.  One of my variations/lines calls for a pawn to be taken "en passant" and for some reason every time I try to take the pawn en passant the program tells me I've made an incorrect move.  Then it shows me where I should have placed my pawn and it is exactly on the square I tried to put it on twice before!  Is this a known bug or something unique to my computer?