What is the best way to learning the openings?

It seems that the opening collection is really a bunch of ideas for many different openings.

Is there a tool that people normally use to learn something like this? I have fritz running komodo 10.1 and I have chessbase along with various powerbooks, megadatabase, and chess opening encyclopedia.

Just confused on the best way to practice (besides play) and study the repertoire.

Is it just flat out memorization?

When you find out, please let me know. Openings are my biggest weakness. I just can't remember the billions of lines needed to "be a book".

A pretty good tool for the openings is Chess Position Trainer. It's not too difficult to import the pgn files from the provided ICS Openings files. What's nice about the tool is the way it navigates from openings through variations and notes which helps the memorization. I think you will find that the openings provided by ICS are coherent and more than just a "bunch of ideas for many different openings" when you are able to see the big picture which the Chess Position Trainer helps to see.

It's impossible to memorize everything, so I've truncated a lot of the ICS files and try to focus on the ICS provided "To Do" lists for the main variations. This is in part because ICS was a bit inconsistent with their formats - some of the material incorporates mainly game scores which (although useful) makes a quick study of main ideas difficult. Also, you can "train" your repertoire with Chess Position Trainer and over time you will be able to easily to adjust the repertoire from your practice to fill out the numerous voids and as your taste in openings changes.

Another "tool" available to you since you already have ChessBase and Fritz is to create your own opening book in order to practice with training games against the computer. I think this works better than the opening training that Fritz provides since you will be playing your whole repertoire rather than particular lines and because it incorporates recent theory into your training games. You can just follow the ICS outline on how to learn the opening (from month 1) to collect the games into a database, then convert the database into an opening book. (In his opening course Smirnov recommends collecting games by ECO code to capture move order transpositions. I don't know if that works in this instance, but you may want to look into it if you decide to try and create your own opening book(s).).

I agree that using Chess Position Trainer (CPT) is a good way to train your openings. I did what PawnCustodian did and loaded the pgns from the course into CPT. I don't play all the variations - I concentrate on what I play and study only those lines - but it is nice to have the repertoire for reference.

chessable.com allows you to load pgns as well. The caveat is that unless you are a paying member, you cannot study beyond the first 10 moves. My guess is that is sufficient for most players to get their feet wet in an opening so that might be a useful tool in conjunction with the pdfs presented in the course. Loading them into chessable.com and reviewing what you can for free is a good way to jump start. Also, the commentary from the pgn is there as well.

I really like the choices the repertoire presents to you from both sides. I got all giggly when I saw the Dutch. I study one opening per week using CPT, and can rotate through the entire repertoire of openings I am interested in playing from both sides in about 22 weeks.

My openings are getting better, especially from a fundamental understanding of the "why" and "wherefore" of the ideas from ICS. This improves your ability to come up with your own ideas should your opponent deviate from the lines presented. Naturally, my middlegame play is still suffering, but it is getting better as well.

Is it worth buying the chess position trainer? I checked the website and it seems that the updates don't come up frequently. I downloaded all the pgn from the repertoire and consolidated it into two pgns white repertoire and black repertoire. My idea was to play through the lines while travelling on train in the analyse this app for android. Will be great if some one can enlighten on cpt

It's true that CPT does not do many updates. Regardless of the lack of updates, it is good enough, so I recently renewed my license.

It's probably the best tool available for quickly memorizing a new repertoire, especially if it large and complex. After that, it becomes a time distracting mind numbing exercise and should be set aside in favor of playing and analyzing your own games, so I don't use it all that much now. But it does remain convenient book keeping tool for maintaining, reviewing and updating your own repertoire(s).

So we have to pay 39 usd every year to renew the licence?

No, $9.90. But it's not really necessary to renew the license.

There is a CPT Facebook page with a link that describes the subscription program. I renew the subscription each year, but as you point out, without updates during the year it is for naught.

The initial purchase includes a 1-year license, you can decide for yourself if you wish to renew. You will not lose any functionality at the end of the first year, but after that period if there is an update you would need to pay the full price to get the newer version.

OK thanks a lot mate for your reply I will check and buy it tonight

BTW, staying on the topic "What is the best way to learning the openings?" there is a series of youtube videos "How to Memorize Chess Games" by David Pruess which I think gives an outstanding example of how to study the openings.

Thanks for your suggestion PawnCustodian. I bought CPT yesterday and spent a good 4 hours organizing the CM School Opening Repertoire into it. CPT was grossly underestimated by me and it seems well worth buying.
I will check the youtube video as well.
Thank You again IM PawnCustodian

PawnCustodian wrote:BTW, staying on the topic "What is the best way to learning the openings?" there is a series of youtube videos "How to Memorize Chess Games" by David Pruess which I think gives an outstanding example of how to study the openings.

In this video, Pruess briefly mentions something I have been considering in relation to further visualisation training: going through the openings in one's head. Does anyone, if anyone is out there, have any experience with visualization of openings and whether this helps retention as well as visualization skills?

Hmmm... I thought that this forum was dead :-(.

I'm not active these days, just solve a few problems every day and follow the elite tournaments as a fan.

I think we probably all do what you suggest - how often do you find yourself doing a post mortem with your opponent after a game, only  setting up the board if the position gets really complicated? My guess is all the time.  

Rather than invest a lot of time gathering source material, you might find it more effective (and fun) to play a lot of training games with friends or the computer. Just be sure to play hard with intention and analyze the games afterwards.

I've been giving further thought to your plan to combine Openings and Visualization.

When I look back at what I did right and wrong I feel one of the mistakes I made was allowing myself to become distracted looking for something "extra" like the Pruess videos. The distractions turned out to be nothing but procrastination.

If you have signed up for the ICS program you have effectively hired a teacher. I think that the instruction is the best you will find barring a good personal coach. Shopping around for another teacher while a student is just another form of procrastination.

I would strongly advise anyone to keep it simple and follow the course guidance strictly through to the final page. You will be richly rewarded.

Couldn't agree more!

Thanks for getting backing, PC

I agree that distraction/too many things is bad. I wasn't planning on adding any opening/visualization stuff in the was I detailed until after the end of the visualization months as a 'further study' method as is suggested.

I also forgot to mention that I would be doing the visualization on an already learnt learnt rep (well, what I recall of it as I no longer have access to it) and so would only be doing under ten lines a day to keep things ticking over and then if it was good, it could replace my standard opening review and not add any extra time at all.

Either or anyways - defo agree that doing too much and procrastination (even positive procrastination is bad!). Luckily I have no life and a lot of dedication so things are looking good for completion of the course within the year ... unless the real life somehow intervenes, of course!

Yeah that real life thing keeps getting in the way of so much stuff...