Sorry about the delay, been kind of busy as of late, still steadily working on my opening book though.
Source materials for the compilation, I’m not following any one person’s opening book. I’m using several sources, it could be from opening books on a particular line that I play or using any or all of the following, ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings), MCO (Modern Chess Openings), NCO (Nunn’s Chess Openings), BCO (Batsford Chess Openings), and last and certainly not least. The item I feel is the single most important component in the arsenal of any aspiring chess player, a database program. I own, love, and swear by my Chessbase 9. (Matter of fact here recently it is what I have been using the most.)
To me it is worth its weight in gold. If I had to pick between having access to a library that had every chess book ever printed or using Chessbase, I would choose Chessbase.
Most of the opening books that you see on the market are nothing more than a collection of games with very little if any original ideas, with just some text thrown in for good measure.
The “Opening Report” feature in Chessbase will do the same thing those books do and more.
Enter in a series of moves from a particular opening that you are interested in learning, “Right-Click” on the board, select “Opening Report” then stand back because it will give you more information than you can imagine.
Chessbase spits out the following, all of course reflecting the database selected. (You can use anything you want as a reference database, from correspondence games, entire games collections, your own particular games, Internet (Log file) games, whatever you happen to have or decide to create.)
It gives me the following information, along with the number of games found.
1) A brief history of when it was first played, by whom, latest GM game, and latest game. It also shows a graph Number of games/Years played.
2) A list of “Strong GMs and Notable Players” that used this line, and their win/loss records.
3) The Statistics, performance levels, percentage of White wins, draws, Black wins and the average length of each.
4) Moves and plans.
That was just one small example. (Chessbase does tons more, do a web search for Steve Lopez’s Chessbase articles to get a way better example.)
The amount of time it saves me is incredible, not to mention you can easily pop open Fritz or some other GM strength chess engine and review positions, games, etc.
I couldn’t afford to purchase, let alone store the amount of opening books Chessbase replaces. It would take me months of time, a full time research team and a stack of “Chess Informants” to cover all of the games CB finds with a few quick clicks of the mouse.
End of Part 2.
(Next installment I will actually get to my silly approach.)
