Arranging A PGN Opening Repertoire

[Castleton]

Greetings fellow warrior!

If you are someone like me, who is serious about the game and seeking ways that will help you to achieve a higher level of play, then this tutorial will add another arrow to your quill.

First, having a well organized repertoire is of utmost importance, especially for memorization. I find that it's best to arrange it in algebraic order, not only for effective memory recall, but also for the practical purposes of adding and retrieving lines/games. Unfortunately, most databases that you find online are a jumbled mess, making it difficult and time consuming to find certain game positions. Thus, the purpose of this tutorial.

In the following, I will show you how to arrange a PGN Opening Repertoire using the very cool free app "Notepad++".

Why PGN? Because PGN (Portable Game Notation) is a universal chess text format that can be easily converted to any other chess GUI format, making chess games more accessible to all.

Getting Started

First, go to notepad-plus-plus.org and download-install Notepad++.
Next, go to sourceforge.net and download the Notepad++ "TextFX" plugin and copy it to the Notepad++ plugins folder.
Next, go to www.pgnmentor.com and download any PGN opening of your choice, unless of course you already have one.
Finally, go to www.playwitharena.com and download the free Arena chess GUI, unless you already have a GUI that can display PGN files.

Ready To Rock

Now, open Notepad++ and then open your PGN opening database.
You should see the game header tags displayed, followed by the opening moves.
In order to arrange the opening database in algebraic order, we will first need to remove the existing game header tags.

To do this, go to: Edit>Select All, highlighting the entire opening database.
Next, go to: TextFX>TextFX Edit>Unwrap Text. You will now see the PGN data unwrapped into single lines.
Now, we will separate the game header tags from the games.
First go to: TextFX>TextFX Edit>Delete Blank Lines.
Next, go to: TextFX>TextFX Tools and check mark "Sort Ascending".
Now go to: TextFX>TextFX Tools and choose "Sort lines case insensitive (at column)".
The opening database is now arranged in algebraic order.
Next, scroll down to where the games end, where you will find the game header tags.
Highlight just the tags, then right click on them and choose "delete" removing them from the database.

Note: If you want to keep the games with tags for reference, then be sure to make a copy of the database in question.

Follow these next procedures carefully:

Under the preceeding paragraphs you will see an empty game header tag. Highlight and copy it. Now, place your cursor at the beginnining of line 1. Next, go to: Macro>Start Recording. Next, hit enter creating a blank space on line 1. Using your up arrow key, move your cursor back up to line 1 and then go to: Edit>Paste embedding the copied tag there. Next, using your left arrow key, backspace your cursor to the beginning of line 7. Now, using your down arrow key, move down to line 9 and hit enter again, creating another blank space like before. And now as before, move your cursor up to the blank space and go to: Edit>Paste repeating the embedding of the tag into line 9. Again, move your cursor left to the beginning of line 15 and then down to the beginning of line 17. Now, go to: Macro>Stop Recording. Finally, go to: Macro>Run a Macro Multiple Times and tick "run until the end of the file and click "Run".

Close the Macro window.

We have just placed copies of the game header tags appropriately in front of all of the subsequent games. One last procedure and your repertoire arrangement will be complete: Like before, place your cursor at the beginnining of line 1. Next, go to: Macro>Start Recording. Next, hit enter creating a blank space on line 1. Next, move your cursor down to 9 and hit enter creating a blank space on line 9. Now, move your cursor down one to line 11. Finally, go to Macro>Run a Macro Multiple Times and tick "run until the end of the file and click "Run".

Close the Macro window.

We have just created spaces between the game header tags and subsequent games, which is a necessary tagging protocol for reading PGN in your Chess GUI. Go to: file "Save As" to save your newly arranged PGN Opening Repertoire.

Empty Tag:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]


Tips And Suggestions

Being that a downloaded opening database is not a repertoire, then you will need to take some time in analysis with a good chess engine to sift through the various lines/games and weed out what you don't want.

If you are someone like myself, with a great passion for the game and don't mind the daily rigors of study and memorization, then I suggest the following methods for success:

Start out slow and easy. Don't overwhelm yourself. Begin by just going 5 moves deep into your repertoire, then add one move per day. With each new added move, you become stronger and stronger which gets that fire going in your belly and the desire to press on. And don't exceed 20 moves.
If you have a solid rep, with plenty of tricks and traps, then you should be in good shape at 20 moves in. Also, get some good books on endgame. The masters will tell you that the endgame is what separates the Tiger from the Dragon. Every repertoire, no matter how tricky, will have plenty of equal lines, so you better know your endgame.

If you have found this tutorial useful, drop me a line and tell me what ya think. Good luck in your pursuits. I hope to meet ya across the board one day. Peace, out. Sean Castleton ~ Email: s.m.castleton@gmail.com

[jdart]

I think most amateur players spend too much time on openings. There are far more opening books than books on tactics, strategy or endgames. But that does not mean that the opening moves are more important to study. That is just where the demand is. (Studying openings does matter but it is only a small part of what makes strong players strong).

Also, while I'm sure your study method will work, you've obviously never used ChessBase. IMO, once you have used that you will never go back to something else.

--Jon

[Castleton]

This is very true and good advice for novice beginners of the game. But for more seasoned players who know the principles and concepts and want to raise their game to a higher level, then memorization is quite good for this.

Bobby Fisher and Kasparov, amongst others, were known for memorizing vast amounts of data in preparation for events. I suppose I should have clarified this in my original post. You are quite correct, in that it would not be good for beginners or even intermediates to just memorize lines/games without learning tactics. I concure.

Concerning the learning of tactics... actually, you learn tactics with memorization, which would be the reverse of what you are implying. I realize that this would seem counter-intuitive to some, but it works out the same.