I hope chess.com will implement this idea soon. If professionally made it would lift up learning openings to a whole new level. I hope they realize the potential that comes with such a powerful tool that I have suggested. I fear that chess.com might have the idea to mix it up with game databases and their opening explorer, which is not the core idea of my tool. But the whole idea of my repertoire tool is about individual customization of the repertoire moves and about an individual position database, not a collective game database. I am convinced that my idea could revolutionize, even up to elite level, how chess players learn opening theory.
Books on chess openings are very popular. But learning it from a written down book seems archaic to me, because there are so many variations. The right thing for learning openings is not a book, it is an online tool with which you can create, manage and train your individual repertoire. Of course you could put in information from books. But the tool would make it much, much easier to manage the repertoire then. And the tool would make it much easier to learn and memorize the right moves and variations. An professional online tool for the purpose of creating, managing and training ones own individual opening repertoire would be so much more flexible than all learning methods that exist up to today.
The fact that books on chess openings are so popular reflects that many chess players like busying themselves with opening theory. It is really strange that even though so many chess players busy themselves so much with opening theory there is no good online tool to create, manage and train ones own individual repertoire.
I think chess.com should provide an opening repertoire tool to users which includes at least the following functions:
- Creation of individual opening repertoire trees (not a complete description, but you get the basic idea):
The user should be able to put in the individual moves of his/her repertoire on the chess board while also being able to individually comment moves and positions. The tool should be able to identify equal positions reached via different move order. You should also be able to add !, !!, ?, ??, ?!, !? to each move and to add an evaluation number of the position at the ends of the tree by let's say the recent Stockfish engine version at a certain depth the user can choose, e. g. +- (1.91) depth 30. Certain key positions in the repertoire should be able to get a tag, so that you can switch to them easily. There should be an explorer-like tag manager. Each user has two individual repertoires, one for white, one for black. The tags serve to navigate through the repertoires of each color. For example you can create a black repertoire and after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 you tag the position with the tag name "Slav Defense". The tag appears in the tag manager and you can navigate directly to this exact position by clicking on the tag Slave Defense. When creating a black repertoire for example, in each position when it is Whites turn you can add multiple possible moves by the opponent, having an order. For example after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 you could add 3. Nf3 and 3. Nc3 as possible opponents moves to your repertoire and you could say that 3. Nf3 ranks above 3. Nc3. In the same way you can also type in multiple moves when it is your turn as black player, but then only the move ranked number one in your order will be your repertoire move, but of course the tree that comes after your second ranked repertoire move is also saved. Of course you should be able to easily change the ranks of the moves in each position, e. h. being able to switch the ranks of 3. Nf3 and 3. Nc3 and make 3. Nc3 your actual repertoire move.
- Practice/Training function (not a complete description, but you get the basic idea):
The user should be able to practice/train his individual opening repertoire and be able to choose between different practice/training modes. For example: Let's say you have built your individual repertoire with Black and you want to practice it. E. g. You choose the "random mode". You can choose the position where you want to start your training from in your repertoire tree. Now the computer plays the white moves in your repertoire on the chess board and after each white move you have to find your "correct" individual repertoire move. If you were wrong or if you don't know the correct move you have the option to let the computer show you the "right" move according to your repertoire and/or begin the variation again from the start. The computer randomly chooses the variations, but makes sure that you never train the same variation (that you got right) again in the same training session. So in the end the computer will have "randomly-systematically" gone through your repertoire. You should also be able to choose the "systematic mode" when the computer goes completely systematically through your repertoire according to the ranks of the moves. After each move your individual comment to the move and your individual comment to the position should be displayed, which should help practicing your repertoire.
I think this would be a great tool and I don't know why such a tool is not provided by chess.com for its users. If you like this idea please reply.
(There is already a webtool chessply.com, which has the right approach and shows the basic idea, but chessply.com contains some errors and conceptual mistakes, e. g. chessply.com does not provide correct display of typed in comments if you use national specific letters, like the german letters ä,ö,ü,ß for example. Also the training mode on chessply.com is flawed. While going through your typed in repertoire randomly, the computer gives each candidate move the same probability, no matter the move number. This way you practically never reach the deeper variations of your typed in repertoire. You may even find yourself practicing a certain variation multiple times in one session, even if you got it right every single time. That is the main reason why chessply.com is useless in its actual form. It was not updated since more than a year.)
I can only suggest to chess.com to implement and provide such a tool for its users. Not only would it be heavily beneficial for users to practice their individual opening repertoire with a professionally made tool. From an economic point of view it would also bind users to chess.com, because when they typed in their whole individual opening repertoire, they will be more likely to continue using chess.com. I could not find any professionally made webtool that provides creating, managing and practicing/training an inidividual chess opening repertoire and which is really beneficial. So this really is a gap in the market chess.com should think of filling. I am pretty sure that I am not the only chess player in the world who misses such a webtool.