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Spaced repetition opening moves - a good idea, or a really bad one?

So you played a bot for a test? Worthless. You don't even tell how many games. Anyway the point is to improve your openings and with spaced repetition you can do exactly that. It's not the only way to train openings but for sure it's not a bad one. You just need to adjust things properly. The most important thing is that the repertoire is well made. Better openings lead to better results if nothing else changes.

So you played a bot for a test? Worthless. You don't even tell how many games. Anyway the point is to improve your openings and with spaced repetition you can do exactly that. It's not the only way to train openings but for sure it's not a bad one. You just need to adjust things properly. The most important thing is that the repertoire is well made. Better openings lead to better results if nothing else changes.

Can I ask what is Spaced repetition? I dont really understand

Can I ask what is Spaced repetition? I dont really understand

The thumbnail is atrocious. Please do better

The thumbnail is atrocious. Please do better

One big benefit I can think of for spaced repetition systems is making yourself simply go over everything, as opposed to memorize everything. Like there's should be a lot of lines in your repertoire that you will basically never play, simply because your opponent's never play them.

But then that one time they do, having at least an approximate familiarity with the ideas is way more useful than the more common 'well I never play this, let's move onto something more relevant.' Even more so if your rating or player pool is such that you often play many of the same players over and over.

One big benefit I can think of for spaced repetition systems is making yourself simply go over everything, as opposed to memorize everything. Like there's should be a lot of lines in your repertoire that you will basically never play, simply because your opponent's never play them. But then that one time they do, having at least an approximate familiarity with the ideas is way more useful than the more common 'well I never play this, let's move onto something more relevant.' Even more so if your rating or player pool is such that you often play many of the same players over and over.

I believe a good idea is to implement the "spacing" based on principles, even when you're "repeating" for rote memorization.

Case in point: let's say you play a variant and forget the right response. Instead of placing that exact variant in the "to be rehearsed sooner" category, place all of the variants that are thematically connected.

In other contexts, let's say flash cards for bird species as a weird example, when you forget a small blue bird's name, you get to rehearse more blue and small birds, rather than that particular one.

But this applies more to, let's say, Lichess puzzles, which are already very nicely tagged for topics. We are getting back to the GIGO thing, where even something theoretically simple like spaced repetition requires very well prepared and curated material.

Anyway, this is a larger subject. Crystalizing my thoughts in this post (and THANKS for all the great replies so far and the ones coming, I am sure) I've realized that I have to focus my efforts more towards community and effective learning/teaching than the usual technical features I love to implement. That shift will take a long time to complete, though...

I believe a good idea is to implement the "spacing" based on principles, even when you're "repeating" for rote memorization. Case in point: let's say you play a variant and forget the right response. Instead of placing that exact variant in the "to be rehearsed sooner" category, place all of the variants that are thematically connected. In other contexts, let's say flash cards for bird species as a weird example, when you forget a small blue bird's name, you get to rehearse more blue and small birds, rather than that particular one. But this applies more to, let's say, Lichess puzzles, which are already very nicely tagged for topics. We are getting back to the GIGO thing, where even something theoretically simple like spaced repetition requires very well prepared and curated material. Anyway, this is a larger subject. Crystalizing my thoughts in this post (and THANKS for all the great replies so far and the ones coming, I am sure) I've realized that I have to focus my efforts more towards community and effective learning/teaching than the usual technical features I love to implement. That shift will take a long time to complete, though...
<Comment deleted by user>

You can apply spaced repetition to studying annotated master games -- in doing so, you'd be learning opening lines and improving your tactical vision at the same time.

You can apply spaced repetition to studying annotated master games -- in doing so, you'd be learning opening lines and improving your tactical vision at the same time.

"he king of them all, the one people have been requested for ages, a real chess tutor - this, I am afraid, is practically impossible. If it were doable, chesscom would have done, Lichess would have done it, I would have done it. Thing is, computers are still idiots. Really really fast idiots, but idiots nonetheless. They cannot teach you what they themselves do not know."

I think computers can teach you but the thing is user needs to be aware that whatever computer is saying is aprox and not the source truth, in my chess GUI I'm using LLMs to have a hand holding than absolute authority. I think for opening learning something like this might be useful, memorizing lines isn't the solution tbh something different that sits between both I guess.

"he king of them all, the one people have been requested for ages, a real chess tutor - this, I am afraid, is practically impossible. If it were doable, chesscom would have done, Lichess would have done it, I would have done it. Thing is, computers are still idiots. Really really fast idiots, but idiots nonetheless. They cannot teach you what they themselves do not know." I think computers can teach you but the thing is user needs to be aware that whatever computer is saying is aprox and not the source truth, in my chess GUI I'm using LLMs to have a hand holding than absolute authority. I think for opening learning something like this might be useful, memorizing lines isn't the solution tbh something different that sits between both I guess.