Yeah, this is one of the issues I have with people mindlessly drilling through Chessable courses. The mileage one gets from the course could significantly differ, just based on the player's level alone.
If we took a repertoire on the Caro-Kann for example, 100s of variations could be dedicated to the supposedly most critical Short variation - but most of that learning would be a "waste" in some sense, as it's pretty rare below the titled level (at least in my experience).
For a 2200 player it could be incredible material, but for a 1600 would almost be irrelevant.
Hi, this is interesting stuff, that I also noticed before. Any chance you would publish the code to generate these plots for a given position? I'd love to play around with it and see if that could help develop a repertoire at a specific level
I think one should hand pick each opening since your repertoire should reflect your character as a player and as a human being. At lower levels start with 1.e4 will help you to improve faster than 1.d4 or others.
Good analysis. I'd be interested in seeing the difference between the various time controls. I'm assuming bullet games are included in your data, since I see "bullet pre-move traps" in the data (Bh6).
A few things which you don't mention in your article but which are also important.
- Openings change not only by climbing the rating ladder but also over time.
- The mix of Lichess openings are (very) different from classical otb openings. My advise is here to focus on classical openings except of course if you never play classical games.
- The probability of encountering an opening largely depends on how fixed your own repertoire is. I saw for the Berlin factor 4 to 8 between fixed and random openingselection.
- Last but not least, there exist today books focused on lower rated players so presenting them a personalized openingrepertoire. Some are very good. For help ask around or your coach.
Yeah, this is one of the issues I have with people mindlessly drilling through Chessable courses. The mileage one gets from the course could significantly differ, just based on the player's level alone.
If we took a repertoire on the Caro-Kann for example, 100s of variations could be dedicated to the supposedly most critical Short variation - but most of that learning would be a "waste" in some sense, as it's pretty rare below the titled level (at least in my experience).
For a 2200 player it could be incredible material, but for a 1600 would almost be irrelevant.
Hi, this is interesting stuff, that I also noticed before. Any chance you would publish the code to generate these plots for a given position? I'd love to play around with it and see if that could help develop a repertoire at a specific level
I think one should hand pick each opening since your repertoire should reflect your character as a player and as a human being. At lower levels start with 1.e4 will help you to improve faster than 1.d4 or others.
Good analysis. I'd be interested in seeing the difference between the various time controls. I'm assuming bullet games are included in your data, since I see "bullet pre-move traps" in the data (Bh6).
Last year I wrote an indepth analysis about the popularity of the Berlin opening: https://schaken-brabo.blogspot.com/2022/10/schaakopeningen-studeren-deel-5.html
A few things which you don't mention in your article but which are also important.
- Openings change not only by climbing the rating ladder but also over time.
- The mix of Lichess openings are (very) different from classical otb openings. My advise is here to focus on classical openings except of course if you never play classical games.
- The probability of encountering an opening largely depends on how fixed your own repertoire is. I saw for the Berlin factor 4 to 8 between fixed and random openingselection.
- Last but not least, there exist today books focused on lower rated players so presenting them a personalized openingrepertoire. Some are very good. For help ask around or your coach.