How to use Chessable when studying openings

Preface

This article is directed at people who already use chessable to study openings and want to make the most out of the spaced repetition tool for memorising openings. I see many people start a chessable course, all excited to learn their new opening, breeze through dozens of lines and then call it a day. Later on, maybe a day or two later they come back and try doing some reviews, they fail many of the moves, get frustrated, give up on the reviews and move on to learning something new. The reviews pile up and trying to get them down is futile as you fail many moves. If this sounds familar then this article is for you.

I have used Chessable a lot and it is a fantastic tool with a lot of great content produced by the top players of the world. I too was once guilty of using the tool improperly and eventually found myself with over 9000 pending reviews and no way out. How was I supposed to learn these wonderful opening courses that I purchased? Well these days my pending review count is zero at the end of each day, with over 3500 variations on my account. Keep reading to find out my advice for using Chessable effectively to make studying easier and more fun!

Step -1: Fixing your mess

Before I even start talking about how to study properly, it is time to meet your new best friend, you will be making good use of this button while using Chessable and it is essential to using the platform properly.

If you have any doubt in your mind that you do not fully understand a chaper, or even an entire course, then you should hit this button. Reviewing something you do not understand in the first place is pointless, it is better to start from scratch. If it is just a few variations and a small number of moves that are confusing you then that can be fixed by reviews and analysis, but if you are failing more than around 10% of the moves in a chapter then it is better to delete progress and start over.

Delete everything you are struggling with and start from scratch. The material that you actually know and understand will stay in your head anyway so reviewing it later on will be near-instant. After going through all your courses and deleting progress for chapters you are struggling with you should be left with a low review count, finish those reviews and get down to zero.

Step 0: Choose what you study carefully

I will recommend when using Chessable for openings to do what is essentially an all or nothing approach. You either commit to memorising a variation or you do not enter it into the spaced repetition system at all. With that said it is time to introduce your second new best friend.

If you want to learn the content of a chapter, but aren't interested in memorising every single move, then this is a good option. Study the variations, then hit pause so they do not show up in review sessions. You can always delete progress later if you decide it is time to memorise.

Choose carefully what to put into the spaced repetition system, what to delete, and what to pause. Ask yourself if it is really worth your time learning this variation, this chapter, or maybe even this entire course. Keep in mind when choosing what to learn that most of the time a chapter stands on its own as a cohesive unit and all the variations inside should be learned together. Sometimes multiple chapters need to be studied together as they all stem from the same initial move.
Sometimes chapters don't need to be studied at all. For example if you are studying a course about 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 from the White perspective, you may choose to study all the chapters about 2...g6. Yet when it comes to the chapters about 2...e6 you do not study them because the author recommends 3.Nc3, and you would rather play 3.Nf3 and study the opening from a different source. That is a perfectly valid way to use an opening course.

Step 1: Learn it properly the first time

For my method the majority of the understanding of the opening variation is developed the first time I study the variation. Each time a move is presented take some time to think about why it was played, what you would have played, what the plans are in the position, etc. Take some time to calculate and engage your chess brain on the position. If you are struggling to understand anything then take it over to an analysis board and play around with stockfish until you understand the move.

One thing I like to do to help me absorb the postion on the first go is to copy the variations and comments by hand into pgn file via chessbase or lichess. This helps engage with the moves as you are forced to make the moves multiple times, and write out the commentary on the moves too (including the opponents moves and the sidelines!).

One deficiency of Chessable in my opinion is that it only teaches you the opening moves from one side, while mostly glossing over your opponents moves. This is great for building the association for knowing the right move when you see a position. But it is problematic in understanding the whole variation. Often during a game when I am thinking about the opening theory I will want to play out the variation all the way in my head to make sure that I am thinking of the right position and not mixing anything up. This can be difficult if you are only memorising the moves from one side and do not understand the reasoning behind the opponents moves.

In any case experiment and find what works for you. It is often impossible to understand a position fully on first viewing, and you will certainly grow a deeper understanding while doing the reviews, but please strive to understand as much a possible the first time around. Do not leave yourself with many doubts about the position for later when reviews come around. And if you find yourself struggling do not hesitate to return to Step -1 ;)

One last thing for learning openings, I find it useful for myself to check through databases to see how often the lines are played, where the author introduces novelties etc. I find it easier to learn a line when I know it has been played thousands of times and I need to take it seriously, or if it has rarely been played yet is still challenging so you should know what to do etc. Having that extra bit of context gives more things for you brain to latch onto when memorising moves, instead of everything being a blur of pure chess.

Step 2: Use the system as it was intended

Level 1: 4 hours - +40 points earned
Level 2: 1 day - +50 points earned
Level 3: 3 days - +60 points earned
Level 4: 1 week - +70 points earned
Level 5: 2 weeks - +80 points earned
Level 6: 1 month - +90 points earned
Level 7: 3 months - +100 points earned
Level 8: 6 months - above 100 points earned

Chessable uses a great spaced repetition system to aid in memorisation. This literally forces the moves into your memory whether you like it or not. The only thing you need to do for the memorisation is show up and do the reviews. But here comes the part most people struggle with: you actually have to do the reviews. Reviews should be completed as soon as they are available, this means keeping your review count at zero every day.

After viewing a move for the first time (or failing it), it will come up for review in 4 hours. This lends itself to a twice per day review schedule, things you studied at night you can review in the morning and vice versa. After the first review the schedule extends to 1 day, 3 days, and then a week. This means that roughly the first 4 days of learning a variation is the most important as that is when you see it most. If you can get it past the first 4 days then you should have a fairly good understanding of the variation and it is also ok to fail a move or two later on if you forget as that will be just one variation out of dozens that you need to repeat.

Step 3: Actually play the openings

The best way to reinforce your knowledge is to play the openings you have been learning! If you want to keep your super secret opening preparation a secret then there are a few ways to work around that. First of all you can try playing against the computer, try making a lichess study with the position you want to practice, then press continue from here and pick an appropriate difficulty computer level. It isn't the same as human play but it can still give some good practice.
Another option is to play on an alternate/anonymous account, most chess websites won't mind you having two accounts (chess com even makes special provisions for titled players to have anonymous accounts), but don't go overboard and spam accounts.
If you aren't concerned about your secret prep, then go ahead and ask your chess mates to help you practice as well, you could even tell them which variations you are struggling with so you can sharpen up your weak points.

Step 4: Have fun!

If you are studying correctly then reviews should breeze by, reviewing should be the easy part and learning the first time should be the hard part. Again if you find yourself struggling and not having fun then do not hesitate to return to step -1! The beauty of putting something in your brain is that even if you press the delete button it will still be in your brain!

Sometimes it is also the case that a variation is just poorly authored, it may be long, non forcing, convoluted, not relevant, etc. It may sometimes be the right call to just pause a variation and abandon it. For example if the author feels the need to include a 15 move long variation of non-forcing "instructive" moves starting from a sideline of a sideline of the 7th most popular option etc etc, then you can pause and forget that junk. It is ok to be critical of what you are spending your time learning, do not just blindly learn and review.

Conclusion

Hopefully these tips help someone to get more use out of Chessable and improve their experience using this wonderful platform.