I suggest at your rating you really should not be worying about openings ; ), just if your opponent plays 1.e4, play e5, if he does d4 play d5, 1.Nf3, d5 after that just develope pieces, knights, than bishops, than castle :D.
how to use thinker 5.4 for theory?
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i'm a former mid 1600 rated player first of all and am just getting back to chess after almost 10 years of poker and second, i'm a pure tactician with ZERO understanding of position and NEED theory to stay out of trouble before move #10.
that, and i'm about effing sick and tired of losing to 1100s in 1.e4 d5 2.e5 because i can't think of ANY way to get my pieces out and knocking heads, so, you're quite wrong in your assumption. part of why i used to be a 1650 was precisely because of memorizing my repertoire and getting my pieces on squares where they're useable and the very reason i quit was because i got sick and tired of having to play the BORING stonewall defense because i didn't want to have to learn a ton of theory to create an entire repertoire for black when i couldn't play the center counter.
my current lack of theory is a big reason i'm only in the mid 1300s, but i should be back up to the 1600s and higher if i don't get disgusted with losing games before i can even get fully developed.
you might not need to study openings, but i totally do. i hate getting pushed around because i don't know how to defend a position.
i've beaten a 2100 rated player down a ton of pawns with tactics the second i found a square in my wrecked 0-0-0 that i couldn't be checked in and won my opponents rook with an x-ray attack and also beat chessmaster's tal once studying 1.e4 d5 2.d4 e5 when it suggested 3.dxe5 dxe4????? allowing white to take the queen & castle and traded sides to see why it was a good idea and won.
my rating should be at least 100 points higher by the end of the year if not back to my former 1650ish. theory is what helped me get there.
i guess only hackers get to use that program then
I may be wrong, but I beleive to use Thinker you need another program that interfaces with it. Thinker seems to be just the engine. If you can, use SCID or something like it to run Thinker through. I use Houdini through SCID and it runs fine, so my guess is Thinker needs the same.
i just downloaded it and can't even get the program to open, just the read me tutorial. all that happens with any of the features is that a tiny black popup flashes & disappears.
i've tried keyword searching "thinker 5.4 tutorial" & "how to use thinker chess program" etc. to no avail either.
i tell you, EVERY program should have to be tested by compter haters before they get released as hackers mostly seem to write programs you need to be a hacker to use too.
could someone either post a tutorial on how to get thinker working AND how to make it shut up like fritz refuses to do and let you enter moves for both sides to build one's opening repertoire or post a link to one because i can't find one.
if hackers stopped THINKING like hackers, they could make programs that you don't need an owner's manual to use instead of trying to find CRITICAL features buried where you'd never look and poorly labeled so you don't know you found what you're looking for even when you see it.
just try and tell a hacker a simpler & more intuitive way to do something like display theory & variations in the downright LOGICAL indented tree style & get ignored and don't think i haven't tried to get SEVERAL chess program companies to create a book editor & trainer that works like that as i have. if i didn't despise computers so much, i'd program my own software.
right now i not only have thinker on my PC & can't use it, but fritz 6 too even though i hate it's bland play for equality & string you along for 40 or more moves style.
many thanks in advance to anyone that can help me start finding replies to all the goofy lines and out of book replies that are getting reallypopular lately.
sadly though, the best way to study and opening is to create a tree from a book and study every variation from move #1 with an actual board and pieces. that's only about 50 times slower than it should be. DON'T suggest chessbase or bookup either because i'm not hearing it. they're hacker abominations that don't work right at all as far as i'm concerned. i DID find a program online that was awesome for training with your book and intuitive, but that didn't display your theory at all (even in hideous chesbase/bookup variation within variation withing variation style) making editing impossible.