When I announced
the development of CPT 4 I already talked a little bit about the new repertoire
management in CPT 4. This time I will explain the new concept in more depth.
The
following repertoire elements exist in CPT 4:
- Repertoire
- Folder
- Opening
- Variation
Where
“opening” is basically what is called “sub-repertoire” in CPT 3.x. CPT 4 will
offer specific concepts to manage repertoires for tactical positions, chess
puzzles, end games etc. Thus it makes sense to get rid-off of the rather
abstract term “sub-repertoire” in the context of opening repertoires.
For each
repertoire there are automatically created two folders called “black” and “white”.
You can’t delete them.
The new
repertoire elements serve you to organize your complete repertoire in a more
convenient way. In CPT 3.x every sub-repertoire is managed on the same level
and basically no other repertoire element exists. You can’t create any
hierarchy. Furthermore there is no way to manage more than one repertoire at the
same time. You have to load each repertoire and by doing so you are closing the
other one.
Now you can
create as many repertoires in the same database as you like. No limitations
anymore. Everything right there at your finger tips. As the new folders “black”
and “white” are introduced where is no need to create a specific repertoire for
each side. Furthermore you can manage in the same database a repertoire for
your blitz games and your standard games or one for attacking / risky play.
Again, no restrictions here.
Another
issue about the way CPT 3.x manages your repertoire are transpositions. They
are only covered within one sub-repertoire, but not across several
sub-repertoires. Unfortunately there exist many openings which let you
transpose between each other …
In CPT 4
you can navigate through your KID opening and when it transposes to your French
opening CPT will show you the information right away. You change the evaluation
for a position which exists in two openings (e.g. the start position) and it will
be show in all other openings to which the position belongs as well. The same
is true for comments. You delete a position in one opening and it will be
permanently deleted only if it is not part of any other opening. Otherwise it
will be just removed from the current opening, but won’t impact any other
opening.
Some
players complained that they play an opening with both sides, but there was no
simple way to manage and train the same opening for both sides.
In CPT 4
you can easily drag & drop an opening from let’s say a white folder to a
black folder and there you are. CPT is not going to create double entries for
each position. Remember, CPT 4 considers transpositions across sub-repertoires.
It always stores a position only once in the database. Now, you will be able to
easily add new moves to let’s say the Dragon opening from white’s side. However,
those moves are not automatically added to the black opening for the Dragon. You
will see them grayed-out in the candidate move list so you can easily add them
to the other opening, but by default CPT assumes you want them just for the
opening which you edit right now. While you share positions among all openings
you are still able to add and remove individual candidate moves to your liking
and even the order of the candidate moves can be different for each opening
even though the position and candidate moves themselves might be the same.
Sounds a little bit abstract? Well, in short: CPT will act as you would expect
it in the background while giving you a maximum of flexibility.
Now, let’s
have a deeper look at the repertoire elements.
Repertoire
You can add
at any time a repertoire to your database. Then CPT will automatically create a
folder for your black and one for your white openings which you want to manage
under the newly created repertoire. Thus a repertoire by itself is not assigned
to any color. The training score of a repertoire is based on all openings which
are assigned to your black and white folders.
Folder
That’s a
new construct. It will help you to organize more complex openings like the
Sicilian. By itself is has no function. It can contain as many sub-repertoires
or folders as you like.
Opening
Formerly
known as “sub-repertoire”. That’s the core repertoire element. Openings let you
divide your repertoire into logical units. Any opening is either for black or
white. You don’t have to explicitly mark an opening as black or white as the
parent folder holds this information.
Openings
are also what you can train in the training centre. CPT 4 let you train across several
openings.
An opening
has a training score which is the average training score of all positions which
the opening contains.
Variation
Well, these
repertoire elements are more or less just “labels” in terms of CPT 3.x.
However, they are integrated into the repertoire explorer and the repertoire
hierarchy which makes it much easier to utilize them. A variation doesn’t have
any training score. Think about a bookmark to get the idea of variations. If
you want to create a variation you have to open an opening. Then navigate
through your opening to a key position or variation. Now, mark this position as
variation and give it a name. It will be shown below the opening in the repertoire
explorer. If you want to get back to this position later again just double
click on it in the tree. You can have an unlimited numbers of variations for an
opening.
Well, that’s
a rough picture of the new repertoire concept.