A repertoire consists of candidate moves and positions. The program stores no concrete games. Instead it stores for each positions candidate moves which you want to cover with your repertoire (it’s up to you to decide which ones these are). All candidate moves of a position are shown in the Candidate Move List window.

There are two ways to populate your repertoire. You can either import positions and moves from other sources (e.g. PGN file or another CPT database) or you manually add moves.

If the just created opening “Closed Sicilian” is not open please click on it now in the Repertoire Explorer. Then add manually the moves 1. e4 e5, 2. Nc3 by dragging and dropping the pieces of the chessboard.

The arising position defines the “Closed Sicilian”. Now we want to cover all potential moves of Black as we can’t force Black to play our favorite variations. We have to cover all options and then define our reply (usually just one). In this case we want to cover Nc6, a6, d6 and e6 as the most likely replies by black.

Enter Nc6 and then go back to the previous position to add the other moves by either using the Back button or by using the keyboard shortcut Left Arrow.



The blue double arrows let you navigate backward and forward depending on your selection in the dropdown list above (“Branch” in this example).

The arrows are the most helpful keyboard shortcuts of the program. If you use the left or right arrow you can quickly navigate through your opening by the currently selected candidate move. The Up and Down arrows help you to change the selected candidate move of the Candidate Move List window. The Shift Key helps you to jump to the next or previous branch (depending on your selection for the position type in the Navigation ribbon page, which is “Branch” in this example). These shortcuts are particular useful if you want to systematically navigate through your opening.



Your chessboard should look similar to the previous chessboard screenshot. The green arrows indicate which candidate moves exist for the current position. That doesn’t mean all other potential replies are incorrect, but only these candidate moves are considered for training later.

Now, add after the Black candidate move 2. Nc6 the move order 3. d3 d6, 4. g3.



Then go back to the Closed Sicilian starting position by pressing Shift+Left Arrow (or the blue double left arrow of the Navigation group page). This time select the candidate move d6 (by clicking on it in the Candidate Move List) and add 3. d3 Nc6.



Now you might have noticed it: all of a sudden a candidate move exists for this position already!



There are a few things to note. You reached the same position via a different move order. As the program stores each position only once it automatically detects transposition. That’s why your previously entered candidate move g3 is shown. If you look at the Previous Moves window (you may need to activate it first on the group page Extra Windows) you can also see that two different candidate moves leading to this position, which is a sure sign that you reached a transposition.