PART 2 • The chess tree
Creating a tree based on a player's games is an incredibly
useful tool for studying the games of great players. You can
see at a glance how a player responded to various openings.
For example, here's how Marshall's tree looks after the move
1.e4 is played:
• We can see in an instant that Marshall was overwhelmingly an advocate
of double King pawn openings when he had the Black pieces: he
played 1...e5 more often than all other replies combined.
• Creating a chess tree is also crucial for tournament and match
preparation for professional players; a player is able to view an
opponent's opening repertoire in just moments and can prepare
accordingly. Even amateur chessplayers can use the tree for
preparation. Many online correspondence chess sites offer
downloadable databases of games which have been played on the
site; it's possible to create a tree of games based on such a database
to view an opponent's existing known repertoire and possibly find
“holes” in an opponent's opening knowledge.
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