CPT Community

I want to know why ChessBase doesn't provide an instructional manual.I can't even figure out how to use their software, a good example is the ABC of Openings.

I absolutely agree with you Albert,

Chess Assistant is regarding this much better. They offer a great manual.

Regards,

Stefan

Hi,
In the past I didn't know much about opening theory. Two years ago (rated about 1850 DWZ) I was thrown out of book at sequences like e4 e6 d4 d5 Sc3 Lb4, because one day I played e4, one day d4. Then one day advance French, one day the exchange variantion and so on ... Then I begun to think about playing some repertoire and not knowing much about all these openings I was killed very fast in my games. So sometimes no knowledge is better than only a bit ;) Last year I was proud to reach 10 moves mainline. The problem was that my opponents know these lines very good. So although I trained and knwe more of these good openings than previously about my own invented sidelines my results became a bit worse again (1750). So now I'm still struggeling to improve my oppening knowledge, at least to the level of my opponents, maybe later on a beyond their level.
The way I use chessprogramms is closely related to that knowledge. I use CPT to investigate and broaden my repertoire slowly. If I have books to the openings I play that' fine :) So I try to use them and step by step paste some of the lines in CPT. I think actually these lines became to much to remember them all, but I think it has to be done if I intend to play chess for a longer time. At the moment CPT is a kind of a library to structure my chess knowledge. I'm using the novelty feature, too. But I didn't come up with too much training, because it's really a vast amout of time to create a repertoire from scratch. Especially because I didn't know the openings before *g*.
On some openings I have no literature and I don't think I got the time to read through books If I bought them, anyway. So there I go to Fritz and follow some suggestions of his opening books. Sometimes I'm using Fritz engine, too. I use Fritz to analyse my games, too. But lately I realized that analyzing games with Fritz doesn't do much to my chess understanding. It's not enaugh to type the game in and let him tell what I've done wrong I have to think about it. Let him analyze lines I thought about in my game and so on. So I don't know how much I'll use Fritz that way in the future and I think I can live without Fritz. But some engine to browse through my games is needed, I think.
Last but not least, I use Babaschess to log on in FICS and play some games ;)

Internet is a great way to difuse information like chess, but the amount of information could be incredibly high.  I was usually confused following rgca discussions, that usually were too general or were concentrated in some deep variation.  It was worse for me, that I wasn't able to connect none of this information, even though I used SCID (to review a database of games) and ChessPad to view, annotate and collect discussed lines.  For me the best interventions came from Antonio Torrecillas, an spanish master, that has the extraordinary ability to gave contextual information and also, to signal the critical moments in the game that needs a deeper understanding.

CPT has come to fill a gap to me, in regard to two critical areas, similar to the ability showed by Torrecillas:
-- To collect structured information from books or internet articles around openings or systems.
-- The oportunity to place a new line in context and keep track of rgca discussions.
--  For the first time, being able to select what will be my repertoire.
-- Train the lines I believe more important or representative from my repertoire.

Right now I have access to more chess software, but allways have in great steem CPT, ChessPad, SCID and Arena.

As my experience grows, I started to prefer books and use them as a base to have an structured body of information about an opening.  I like to introduce the main variations and also, the refutations to moves I thought "natural" when introduced the variations, just to remember me, what's the position's truth.

Sincerily


Denis J Navas

I use Fritz 9, Chessbase 9, CPT, Personal Chess Trainer & a DGT Board, plus some opening disks from Chessbase.

Knowing what I know now I must agree with Denis and would be equally happy with Arena and SCID. CPT & Personal Chess Trainer ar a must though.

When I started playing chess seriously, I came up against the repertoires of people who had been playing for years. So by the middlegame I was often behind positionally and materially. and struggled to win games from there.

CPT helped me significantly in this area. Without having the years of study, I was able to memorise opening lines quickly. I chose just 3 to start with (1 for white, 2 for black) This enabled me to get into a middlegame properly and begin to onjoy and understand chess better.  

Chessbase as a database is great, but Albert hit the nail on the head! Their non-existent manual causes massive headaches to users. I have spent hours and hours trying to understand how to use the tools in Chessbase. Aside from I find that a database is useful to group together similar games of an opening. I can group them all together and see how Grand Masters played their way through different positions. I especially like annotated games - helps me understand the process.

Fritz 9 is great at analysing games but like Chistoph said that is not always useful. When it picks up errors I have made it is helpful, but looking at move sequences where Fritz has seen 15 levels deep across the board is not helpful to me. I really doubt it is helpful to anyone, but a Grand Master, but heh - each to his own.

Personal Chess Trainer is a must for me to help me understand endgame theory and middlegame strategy and tactics.

If I have to give up some software, I would let Fritz and Chessbase go. As long as I have access to written books. :-) I would keep CPT. Personal Chess Trainer and my chess board.

CPT has helped me win a lot of games - in fact a lot of games against players who understood opening theory than I do. The ability to train an opening for anything the opposition can throw at you. When I play an opponent, there is no score for knowing why a particular move is the best one - the score is made on making the best move. CPT allows me to take Grand Master thinking and mimic it on the chess board. A Grand Master I am not, but my opponent doesn't know that. He just has to deal with the fact that I keep putting my pieces in the right place well into the middle game sometimes. Now it is not me who is going into the middlegame with a disadvantage. And that is what winning chess games is about. IMHO.

Scid no more supported i think

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