Chess Position Trainer – © Stefan Renzewitz 2012- all rights reserved 66
Now, the idea which made CPT popular was to incorporate the flash-card concept into a chess software program. This means that CPT tests you systematically in your openings and stores the results for each position. If you didn’ t remember the correct candidates move for a position it will test you in these positions more often than in those where you did remember the candidate move. This approach ensures that you don’ t miss any position, because CPT considers all positions of your repertoire. At the same time it helps you to focus on your weaknesses – automatically. Other software programs at that time when CPT 1 was released would either not offer any training functionality at all or test you absolutely randomly which is not really efficient nor does it ensures you are really tested in all positions.
Another aspect which made CPT the first choice for training a repertoire is the almost infinite training options.
Anyway, nothing is perfect. The previous implementation had two major flaws, which have been resolved with version 4 and will greatly improve the training experience:
� You had to train all new positions first before the program asked you to recall a learned position � You would be asked to recall a position too early / too late
CPT 4 let you recall positions even if there are not yet learned positions. Actually, it even tries to push you to recall scheduled positions before learning new ones.
Furthermore, by applying the logic of space repetition( similar to the flash-card concept space repetition is already a well-known concept in other learning areas) CPT makes sure you are only asked to recall positions which you are about to forget, but not earlier and thus saving significant time. This sounds like magic at first, but there exists some serious science behind this methodology supported by much practical data.
Let’ s investigate this a little bit more to give you a better feeling and trust into this methodology. If you would recall each position of your openings everyday you would soon have a recall rate of 100 %. However, first of all you won’ t have the time which is required to repeat all positions everyday( some openings can easily have more than 10.000 positions). And at the same time you will get tired by repeating positions you already know very well( e. g. the first move e4 is not too hard to remember). Now, let’ s get to the good news. Research has shown that with each time you remember an item( in our case chess position) you will remember it for a longer time and thus the interval for recall can be extended. You can optimize this interval by defining what forgotten-ratio you would like to have. Again, if you want to recall 100 % you would go for a one day interval.
However, this is pure mathematic based on research data: it makes sense to accept a forgotten ratio of 20 %. This seems to be the optimum in the meaning the time you lose by having to re-learn 20 % is justified by the time you save by using a longer interval and thus recalling less often your positions.