How Repertoire Practice works
You've saved your opening lines. Can you actually play them at the board, and will you still know them in a month?
Ask me just before I would have forgotten
Memory fades on a curve. If you re-read your Najdorf an hour after you last looked at it, you'll get it right, sure. But you haven't had time to forget anything, so it barely helps. The rep that counts comes later, when the move is just about to slip and you have to dig for it.
That's why practice doesn't throw your whole repertoire at you every day. It waits. Every time you get a position right, we push the next showing further out than last time, so it only comes back when you're close to losing it. Miss it and you'll see it again much sooner.
Pretty much everything below comes from that.
Four stages, and what moves you between them
Any position where it's your move and you've prepared a reply sits on one of four rungs. You'll see these same four names all over the app.
You saved the line but haven't been tested on it yet. A brand new repertoire starts out 100% here.
You've answered it, but it's still at the bottom. Either it's new, or you slipped up and it got sent back.
It's sticking. You've got it right, and every correct answer pushes the next check further out.
You've got it right enough times in a row that the next check is over a month away.
What it takes to climb
The gaps go 1 day, then 6 days, then about 16, then about 45. Do the math and Mastered takes four clean answers spread over roughly three weeks. So no, you can't cram it in one afternoon.
What counts as clean? You found it on the first try, you didn't use a hint, and you played your main line, not a backup. Miss any of those and it still counts, it just climbs slower.
And what sends you back down
One wrong move sends the position back to Learning and resets the gap to a day. Even if you find the right move on your next try. We did that on purpose. If you had to work it out, you didn't really know it. Yes, it's harsh, and it's why you can grind through a long session and still see the bars barely move.
Mastered is not permanent, by the way. Stop practicing for a while and things slide back down. That's just what your memory is doing anyway.
Due, waiting, and the 24 hour rule
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Due | You've practiced it before and its gap is up. It's time. |
| Never practiced | Saved, but you've never been tested on it. No gap to wait out, so it's always available. |
| Waiting | Due plus never practiced. This is the number on the Practice button: that's everything you could work on right now. |
| Held back | You saw it in the last 24 hours, so it's left out no matter what, unless you ask for it. |
The 24 hour rule
Once you've seen a position, it stays away for a day. Start a new session, switch focus, drill one variation: doesn't matter. It won't show up, even if that means we have nothing left to give you.
We could quietly recycle stuff you saw an hour ago to keep the session going. But then the sessions feel padded and you stop trusting the numbers. So when you're out, practice just tells you:
Nothing left to revise today. You have already been through Najdorf, English Attack today. I hold a position for a day after you see it, because recalling something an hour later teaches you almost nothing. 14 positions are waiting, and the first is ready tomorrow at 9:40 am.
Right under that there's a button to practice them again anyway. If you want extra reps, go ahead. Extra repetition is always allowed, it just has to be something you chose. We won't slip them in without asking. And it won't mess with your schedule. A position that wasn't actually due doesn't get moved along, so an extra run is free.
What a session actually feels like
You practice a whole line at a time, not single positions. The moves play themselves until it's your turn, you make your move, and the line keeps going. One line usually covers three to six positions in one go.
Case 1: practicing the whole repertoire
You press Practice in the openings tab. It reads Practice · 27 waiting.
12 are due for review, 15 you've never been tested on.
A sheet pops up asking which color you want, what to focus on and how much time you want per position. Then it starts.
The board plays 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 and stops. Your move.
Any reply you've prepared is accepted. Your main line gets full credit. A backup move you prepared is fine too, it just climbs slower.
You play, the opponent answers, and the line keeps going until it ends or you've answered six positions.
A quick summary names what you got, what slipped and what's banked. Then the next line.
Once you've seen everything available today, the session ends and tells you.
Case 2: drilling one variation
From My Progress, you can click any opening. Pick Philidor Defense, 33 waiting and you get a session with only Philidor in it. You can also start from Not started, which gives you stuff you've never seen. Practiced you can look at but not click into. Those positions are already on the schedule, and the right move is to leave them alone until they're due.
The 24 hour rule still applies here. Drill the Philidor now, come back an hour later, and it'll say there's nothing left in it today. You won't get the same six positions again.
Case 3: you have run out
That's normal, and it's a good sign. It means you've done everything the schedule wanted from you today. You'll see the message from above, when the next position is ready, and a button to keep going if you want more.
What the third tab shows you
At the top there's one big number and how we got it. Below that, the same breakdown per opening, so you're looking at lines you actually know and not some abstract count.
12 due for review, 15 never practiced
Under it you get a row per opening, sorted by how much is waiting. Each row has its own bar, the ECO code and the first few moves. Click one to practice just that opening.
One rule we hold this tab to: the numbers add up to the number on the Practice button. A number that moves for reasons you can't see is worse than no number. Everything here comes from the same count, with no second way of computing it.
Try it on your own lines
Practice runs on whatever repertoire you've saved. Add a few lines first and everything above applies to them.