Efficient Opening Study

It's no secret here that I am a Chessbase user, and regularly, on a weekely basis, download new games from Mark Crowther's The Week In Chess, probably the best source of current games in the world. Each Monday I take a few minutes to get the new files and import them into Chessbase 8.0.

I recently began reviewing games from the weekly TWIC files in my repertoire, but got tired of setting the filter mask to various ECO codes each time. Out of curiosity, I discovered a really easy method that is virtually instantaneous to gather the games in your customized repertoire for review that I want to share with you. Here is how it works.

The first step you do is create a New...Text document in *any* database. Then, using the menu lists, create search masks for each opening that you have in your repertoire. For example, you might like to play the Ruy Lopez: C60 - C99. Create a search mask for ECO codes C60 to C99 and label it "Ruy Lopez - C60 - C99" or maybe something more specific like "Caro-Kann, Panov-Botvinnik attack". Create as many search masks as you need in this text document and save it into the database.

With this search mask repertiore text file, you have created a template to gather all games that are associated with each search mask. Simply create new blank text documents in each database and copy the original into it and save it into the new database. The search mask applies to the database that the text document is actually in. Therefore, on a weekly basis as the games become available, you can easily copy a previous 'Repertoire Search Mask Text File' into a newly downloaded database and review the games associated with your repertoire very easily.

I hope this helps streamline your study time and helps make chess more enjoyable for all!

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