What do you do to memorize openings?

I have tried watching video courses, reading books and reviewing PGN files. Even though I felt quite confident with my preparation, I kept on forgetting some of the lines during games. This was frustrating - so much time invested in learning the openings and yet no consistency during games.

I discovered, that I keep forgetting lines which come up less frequently than others during real games (captain obvious). So here is the solution - make them come up as frequently as others. But how? Not everyone has a sparing partner with great opening knowledge, willing to play practice games with you.

So I've built an app that does exactly this.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dreamstreak.chess_drills

It plays through the lines I wanted to memorize. It helped me immensely with memorization of my lines. I decided to share it with the community (the app is free), maybe it will help some of you. Disclaimer - this app requires you to already have PGN files with opening variations you want to train. Although it comes with a few lines to try without the need of having your own PGN files, this is only included to showcase what the app can do, and the preloaded variations are not a comprehensive educational material.

You can use your PC to create a PGN file with multiple variations, put it on your mobile device (email to yourself, usb cable, etc.) and load. The app will make you play through the lines in the random order. It will keep track of the number of mistakes and perfect attempts. If you get stuck, the "hint" button will show the next expected move.

How it works:

⭐ You load a drill set (just a standard PGN file with variations you need to memorize)
⭐ The app parses PGN and builds a list of all the possible variations
⭐ The app makes you play through those variations in the random order
⭐ The app registers individual mistakes and the number of variations completed without any error (perfect attempts)
⭐ The hint button is available to show the next move that is expected from you in the current variation (note - this will increase the mistake counter)
⭐ If your PGN contains graphical annotations after the final move in a variation (%csl and %cal keywords), arrows and circles indicating further plans in a position will be rendered upon completing the drill
⭐ After you play through all the drills in a set, the summary is displayed showing the number of individual mistakes and perfect attempts

Even if you're not familiar with the repertoire you want to learn, you can still use the app and play through the PGN using the hint feature extensively. After a few playthroughs you will find yourself using hints less and less, and finally you will get that fantastic 0 mistake score.

Tips:

⭐ Try out the app with built in PGNs. I have included two short "demo" drill sets that can be loaded immediately from the app without having your own custom PGN.
⭐ Keep your PGNs focused. For example, if you are learning The Slav, make a separate PGN for The Geller Gambit. This will make sure your drill set contains between 5 and 20 drills. More than 20 drills in a set might be too much to play through repeatedly in a finite amount of time. I like my drill sets to contain between 8 and 16 drills.
⭐ Make sure your variations in the PGN end with your move (move of the side you want to train). The app uses this info for board orientation, so if some of the drills in a set will end with white and some with black, the board will flip between the drills. This might be something you want, but most of the time you will train a particular opening for one side at a time.

Have fun and memorize your openings with pace!

My technique for learning an opening:

• Play the opening.
• Lose.
• Figure out exactly WHY I lost.
• Repeat.

@blueemu - agreed that understanding your own mistakes is extremely important!

It also stays with you more effectively than studying lines.

You REMEMBER your losses.

I generally just go over a lot of master games to see the various ideas and plans in the opening. I've found that at lower levels at least knowing the ideas in an opening is more important than knowing theory. Cool app though.

I could say something about understanding the lines, but I think your app is actually very useful. Understanding and repetition do not have to be mutually exclusive.

If your PGN has annotations, do they show up, or does it crash the app, or does it make no difference?

I think your app is great, but there is another website that achieves the same thing. chesstempo.com. 

Imagine using chesstempo on your phone though haha

It should not make any difference. The app is interested only in pure moves to prepare variations for the drill set, everything else is ignored.

@neatgreatfire, @chess_olie, @B1ZMARK - thanks for the kind words!

Honestly, if you have a decent enough rating, just try making up your own openings in quick games and analyzing them later, it has led me to many openings part of my repetoire.

I'm not even sure what memorising an opening actually means. To do it completely, you'd need to learn the most efficient way to punish every move which deviates from it. That's a lot of learning!

i use chesstempo to memorize openings, pretty good site, was able to learn about 100 ply of french defense opening in 1 day (never really used it tho )

@Chess_Player_lol - maybe check out my app from the first post then. If I understood @chess_olie and @B1ZMARK correctly, it achieves a similar thing as chesstempo (repetition training) but on mobile (Android).

The app received some updates!

⭐ look and feel settings: board colors, piece set, sound on/off
⭐ move hints displayed as arrows instead of highlights
⭐ further plans in the final position of a drill are shown via arrows and circles

Do not memorize opening moves just learn the ideas and plans of the opening

@MVPForever thanks for kind words! Please rate the app if you like it .

@verylate agreed! Understanding needs to come first. The app can be treated as a sort of "exam", which after being taken repeatedly increases your familiarity with the material.

@ThunderBolt3345 I would say learn the ideas and plans first, optionally memorize stuff if you want to get the most of your repertoire.

@Boinicq haha, I own the copyrights to those sound effects if you know what I mean .

100% true

Memorizing and other such things takes away the fun of the game. It is after all just a game you play on a board. A game ! !

Nice app and it sounds like desktop defence which I like.