Chess Mentor required some GM/IM to spend a lot of time on specific positions...so that is out of the question.

Chess Hero I have. It's good for certain things. Incorporating something like this is no different from what I have suggested. I think the BEST way to do that would be to have your ENTIRE repertoire give analyzed ahead of time to get a specific numeric evaluation...then, as you train, have your suggestion quickly evaluated by the SAME engine to find suggestions out of a certain tolerance.

That's certainly doable. That said, in many positions one move is going to be about as good as another - maybe even equal. That being the case, it makes my 'BEST' way of doing this impractical from a 'study/remember' perspective. Impractical...but it could catch obviously bad trys on your part.

I forgot to mention there's one more program out there that acts like a chess coach. Lucas Chess! Something that Lucas Chess doesn't do is test you on your repertoire using a chess engine. However, there are multiple personality chess engines you can play and enable something called a tutor, which will show you why your designated move was incorrect by popping up separate chess boards with the variations for each candidate move. Imagine if Stefan could enable tutor mode while studying your opening repertoire.

After you manually enter all the moves into CPT for your designated repertoire isn't it possible to let the engine pick out the moves one by one and test you that way on your repertoire instead of the program itself? Then if the engine spots something that you played that isn't included in your repertoire it will evaluate it and do the same thing the Lucas Chess program does in that it will pop-up a separate analysis board and show you the variation of why it is not the best move or maybe an average move but not the best move (since there are separate windows for each possible candidate move like Lucas Chess does when you play a chess personality).

I am not sure how complicated it is to allow the engine to act as a chess coach. This would be a separate training feature included in CPT I think both for filter mode and complete line? Currently, there is no program that I mentioned above for a feature request like this.

I've read mixed messages on the engine during training mode feature and move order. Personally, I think it is a good idea if you want to make chess more understandable instead of memorizing.

Leavenfish I know you mentioned that there is no substitute for a little calculation and that there is no magical program to solve this problem. There is a way to make the training mode more dynamic with the engine feature. This includes incorporating move order as well! The current problem is that any move that is not in your repertoire is counted as wrong, which I think is a major problem. Also, the training mode only has the static feature of correct or incorrect when choosing your candidate move, and this could be changed to solve the problem. Chess moves don't work as simply correct or incorrect since there could be more than one right correct move.

If you have a training mode as 1. correct with your candidate move, 2. correct but not your candidate move and 3. incorrect instead of just the static correct and incorrect the move order can be incorporated because you have now three options in the training feature.
Let me give you an example with the ruy lopez. E4, E5, Nf3, Nc6, Bb5; on move three for black there is more than one right correct move. Let's say you picked a6 as your candidate move to memorize. There are also two more candidate moves that may not be in your repertoire that is 3. Nf6 and Bc5 and these moves may be correct. Anything not in your repertoire the engine would turn on and evaluate as either incorrect based on evaluation or correct but not your candidate repertoire move.If the engine evaluates as the two moves as correct but not your candidate repertoire move, then you would get multiple tries to pick the right candidate move in your repertoire without this affecting your percentage score.

Hope all of this makes sense! Any thoughts on this?

You mention: "Let me give you an example with the ruy lopez. E4, E5, Nf3, Nc6, Bb5; on move three for black there is more than one right correct move. Let's say you picked a6 as your candidate move to memorize. There are also two more candidate moves that may not be in your repertoire that is 3. Nf6 and Bc5 and these moves may be correct."

Please do not think I am disagreeing just to disagree but in chess there are almost always perfectly playable alternatives. For the line you offer, we see a branch into three entirely different systems. I know I certainly would not want to have to in some way 'deal' with ...Nf6 or ...Bc5 popping up on screen when I really only want to 'train myself' on the ...a6 continuations - the actual lines I play. Simple 'move orders' just do not happen a whole heck of a lot compared to knowing/remembering a chosen course of play.

I think I had some trouble expressing my thoughts for what I wanted in the training mode. I talked with the admin on ChessTempo before I was able to get my point across for what I wanted in the training mode. I'm not sure if ChessTempo will implement this idea or not so I wanted to suggest it here. So I wanted this idea to be included in the training mode:

Is it possible to make a 'good move trainer' solely for the opening? 'The 'good move trainer' for the opening would work by:
a) what is in your repertoire that you would play
b) what the opening database says, and
c) what the engine says

So first you would have to try to play your repertoire move continuously through the training. If that is incorrect but you still play a playable move that is in the opening database or what the engine says then it still will count that as a 'good move'. That way you are not penalized for playing a 'good move' but it's not in your repertoire.

Let me give you an example. E4, E5, Nf3, Nc6, Bb5. Black can play here a6, Nf6, or Bc5. Let us assume that a6 is our only move for a) your opening repertoire . If you have trouble remembering your repertoire move and instead play Nf6 or Bc5, the 'good opening trainer' will still count those moves as good moves since they would be in b) an opening database and also considered good moves. However, the trainer would stop and not test you any further on the continuation of either of these two moves and revert back to testing you on a) your opening repertoirewhich is the a6 move.

So far Stefan doesn't include an opening database capability in CPT and I hope that he includes this in order to make a 'good move trainer' work. Also, in the opening database I would hope that you are able to trim down the size of the opening database to a certain amount of moves like in chessbase.

Hope Stefan can implement this idea as a separate training mode.

fischer2008 schrieb:

I do not know why you want to ‘train’ 2nd, 3rd, 4th (etc) alternative moves for your side…I think for most of us, simply trying to remember and train our already chosen prefered/optimal lines is hard enough!

In the example you mention, why not simply create a separate repertoire for 3...Nf6 or 3...Bc5?

What you suggest would make for a HUGE repertoire...it's so much more easy and practical to try to train one at a time...less confusing as well. Just my humble thoughts as I use CPT a lot.