Learn chess openings with spaced repetition

Learn an opening the way you would learn a poem: a few moves at a time, with the reason for each move, then recite it from memory on a schedule that stretches as you get it right. That schedule is spaced repetition. It is the difference between knowing the Italian Game on Tuesday and still knowing it in March.

When to start

Not first. Until you can find every square without looking and you have stopped hanging pieces to one-move threats, memorised lines are wasted effort, because you leave the line by move 5 and have no idea why its moves were good. Principles carry you that far: a pawn in the centre, knights out before bishops, castle early, and do not move the same piece twice without a reason.

The moment to start memorising is when you reach the same position on move 6 or 7 for the third time and you are still improvising there. A line with a plan behind it then saves you five minutes on the clock and a worse position.

How much is enough

Below club level: one or two openings as White (one against 1...e5 and one against the rest, or a system like the London that covers both), and one defence against each of 1.e4 and 1.d4 as Black. Drill each to move 8 or 10 in the main line, plus two or three common deviations. That is about 20 to 30 short lines, and it covers most of the games you will play this year.

Do not collect openings. Each new one adds lines to review and dilutes the ones you half know. Change an opening when you understand why you lose with it, not because a video made another one look exciting.

How spaced repetition works

The idea goes back to Hermann Ebbinghaus, who in the 1880s measured how quickly he forgot lists of syllables, drew what is now called the forgetting curve, and found that reviewing at intervals slowed the loss. Sebastian Leitner turned it into flashcard boxes in 1973. The Wikipedia article on spaced repetition has the history. Applied to openings: after you play a line correctly from memory, the next review is in one day. Play it correctly again and the gap grows, to a few days, then a week or two, then longer. Make a mistake and the gap drops back to one day. Each line gets its own review date, and on a given day you drill only the lines that are due.

Play the moves on a board, or say them, rather than reading them, because the act of recalling is what strengthens the memory. And keep the reason for each move attached to it, so a deviation you have never seen still leaves you with a plan instead of a blank.

A session that fits in ten minutes

1. Drill the lines that are due today. On most days that is two or three lines, a minute each.
2. If nothing is due, learn one new line: step through it with the explanation for each move, then drill it once from memory. One new line a day is plenty.
3. After a game, check where you left your line. If you left it because your opponent played something you had not seen, that deviation is your next new line.

Common mistakes

• Learning 15 moves deep before you can hold 8. The first eight moves get played in nearly every game; move 15 of a line arrives rarely.
• Reviewing everything every day. The review date exists so you can leave a line alone.
• Drilling only your own moves. Say the opponent's reply too, so the position stays in your head as a whole.
• Skipping the reason. A line you can recite but cannot explain collapses the first time the opponent deviates.

Where to do it

Chessable is the established spaced-repetition tool for chess, with a large library of courses by titled players. It suits people who want depth in one repertoire.

ChessTrainer.ai takes the shorter route. Each opening has a Learn mode with a sentence for every move and a Drill mode where you play the line from memory, on the board or by saying the moves. A line's review date moves out when you get it right and back to tomorrow when you do not. Three openings are free with no account: the Italian Game, the London System and the Scandinavian Defense, four lines each. The other nine, including the Ruy Lopez, the Caro-Kann and the King's Indian, are in Pro with review dates on every line.

Pick one opening for White today and drill its main line until you can play eight moves without a hint. Come back tomorrow for the review.