Player tab, Practical Uses - Insights by Stefan Akall

The Players tab can be selected in the game list.

The Player tab and Opening Explorer tab are a strong duo.

To understand the two tabs, we will first compare them. Keep in mind, however, that scores include games won/lost by blunders and by timeout. Therefore, game scores cannot be equated with opening scores. Because no game with a very bad opening can make it to the endgame, a well-played opening is seen as a prerequisite for victory.

Information on opening theory can be found under Tools\Openings\Opening lines. The regular openings based on theory are stored there.

Opening Explorer: General Opening statistics

1. Application: Results of selected games by depth.

   The contents of the tab are automatically filtered to the moves played, which are displayed on the chessboard.

2. Game Move Depth: Unlimited

3. Handles Moves, Analysis, Results.

4. The "Rebuild' button allows you to select the number of half-moves for each game to be considered.

5. Opening names are very precise and depth related

6. Handles the position evaluation using the “Analyze” button.

7. Mouse wheel scrolling variants on the chessboard.

8. By default all games are considered. The database had to be pre-filtered on piece color and player name in order to generate meaningful and interpretable statistics for a specific player.

9. This tab is an opening tree.

Player Tab: Piece color related statistics for one player

1. Application: Results of selected games by opening lines for one given player.

   A player name is mandatory for the tab to work.

2. Opening Move Depth: Limited to 50 moves (99 half-moves, to be precise)

3. Handles Player name,opening names, variations

4. The "Rebuild" button manually synchronizes the tab contents with the database's game list. Each player name change requires a manual rebuild of the gameset, considering only games corresponding to this player name and assigned to the White or Black pieces.

5. The opening names correspond to the listed openings in the Lucas Chess opening book.

6. No analysis function available.

7. Mouse wheel scrolling variants on the chessboard.

8. Filtering on piece color, player name, and other criteria can be done menu-driven and is easy to handle.

9. A player name can be supplemented with multiple aliases, allowing the game selection to be expanded to include multiple user Ids.

10. Immediately after launching the tab, adjust the player name and rebuild the database.

11. This tab is a player repertoire divided into black and white.

Players tab\ Tab White openings, Tab Black openings

1. The selected player's Opening repertoire overview and related results. Display of the line's moves. Each line in the theory book has a fixed length. The subline is the continuation.

2. These tabs only make sense if you select a single player name, preferably your own, followed by Rebuild. The program will then only display the games played by this player. Additionally, the games are automatically divided into 'white openings' and 'black openings' based on piece color of the player.

3. A "White Opening" is an opening played by the player shown in the Players tab with the white pieces. A "Black Opening" is an opening played by the player shown in the Players tab with the black pieces. It does not matter whether the opening was designed for White or Black.

4. If only a very small number of games are displayed, this is often because the database also contains games without the selected player name, which are however excluded.

5. The move depth corresponds to the Theory book of Lucas Chess.

Players tab\ Tabs: White moves, Black moves

1. The tabs are menu-driven filters (pre-selections), as are the "All," "e4," "d4," "c4," "Nf3," "Other," and "Half-Move" buttons.
   These pre-selection buttons allow for fast searches for details in games.

2. The "Half-Move" box allows you to set the maximum game depth.

3. The move depth corresponds to the Theory book of Lucas Chess.

4. Read the variations diagonally. Alternative lines start with a move in the same column.

Example 1:
Question 1: What lines do I play most often?

Question 2: What subline did I play?

Question 3: What sidelines did I play?

Use the tabs 'White Openings' and 'Black Openings':

Step 1: Compile a database with, for example, Rapid games, covering the last 12 months.

Step 2: Open the Players tab\ Player\ Reread the players list & Change\ Name\ click your name in the list\ Accept. Click Rebuild.

Step 3: Choose a piece color by clicking the related tab. White means that the selected player name played with the white pieces. If no opponent played 1...c5 then this move will not appear in the table. In this case choose Black and consider you were playing with the Black pieces.

Step 4: Read the statistics in the tabs 'White Openings' and 'Black Openings'. The most frequently played openings are shown above in descending order.

On the chessboard you can scroll through the variations using the mouse wheel.

Question 1 is now answered.

Step 5: The sidelines are the declensions of the openings' names. They are grouped next to the main name of the opening in the tabs 'White Openings' and 'Black Openings'.

Example of a line: Queen's Pawn Game 1.d4

Example of a subline: Queen's Pawn game, Chigorin Variation. Note the comma between the line and the subline. 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6

Question 2 is now answered.

Example of sidelines: Queen's Pawn Opening: English Defence 1.d4 b6.

Queen's Pawn Opening: Yusupov-Rubinstein System 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3

Note the colon between the line and the sideline.

Question 3 is now answered.

What alternative moves did I play?

Using the tabs 'White moves' and 'Black moves'.

Step 1: Choose the 'White movesTab' or 'Black moves tab' corresponding to the piece color.

Step 2: Restrict the reperoire: Use the tabs "e4","d4",..."Others" to indicate the first half-move played by the white pieces. Apply The Pre-selection according to your needs.

Clicking on Half-moves i.e. ^4: Restricts the variation lenght to 4 half-moves.

Read the moves by advancing from left to right, column by column

Alternative moves are displayed from top to bottom in the same column.

Example of an alternative move: After 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 Black pieces alternative moves are i.e. Nf6 or Bg4 or g6 instead of the played Nc6.

Example 2:

What move does my favourite titled player play as 2nd move in Sicilian?

The comparison of two methods shows how different the results are depending on the combination of filtering, sorting, export database, tab, button. There's a suitable combination for every situation.

Method 1: General request resulting in a big table

Step 1: Compile a database with the titled player's Mastergames (or download an existing one).

Step 2: Open the Players tab\ Player\ Reread the players list & Change\ Name\ click the titled player's name in the list\ Accept. Click Rebuild.

Step 3: Choose the titled player's piece color by clicking the tab White or Black.

Step 4: Use the tabs 'White Openings' and 'Black Openings' and the button ^3 or ^4.

The table is large because it is general.

Method 2: Precise request on the Opening name or the ECO code resulting in a small table

Step 1: Compile a database with the titled player's Mastergames (or download an existing one).

Step 2: Double-click the header 'Opening' in the game list. This sorts the openings in ascending or descending order. Goto Sicilian: Select those records with the mouse.

Alternative: Select the records with the matching Eco Code in the same manner.

Step 3: Export the selected games in a new database. Continue with this database.

Step 4: Open the Players tab\ Player\ Reread the players list & Change\ Name\ click the titled player's name in the list\ Accept. Click Rebuild.

Step 5: Choose the titled player's piece color by clicking the tab White or Black.

Step 6: Use the tabs 'White Openings' and 'Black Openings' and the button ^3 or ^4.

The table is small but quite precise.

LINK to PDF

Version R2.20 - May 2025 - Stefan Akall