Getting Started

Welcome to Chessboard Magic — your all-in-one platform for building, training, and mastering your chess repertoire. Whether you’re an ambitious club player or a curious learner, this guide will help you take your first steps toward using the platform with confidence.

In this walkthrough, you’ll learn how to:

◦ Create your first Repertoire — and understand how moves, lines, and variations fit together.
◦ Import your own Games into the Library — to track and analyze your play history.
◦ Explore key features — including Training, Practice, and the Tools that bring your data to life.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a fully configured workspace, a personal repertoire to study, and a clear understanding of how Chessboard Magic connects all your chess knowledge together.

Tip: You can always return to this guide at any time — it’s designed as a gentle, practical introduction before diving into advanced topics like the Repertoire Builder, Candidate Move Trainer, or Library Analysis.

User Inteface

The Repertoire Builder interface is organized for speed and clarity. Use the top menus to navigate between major areas and actions; your workspace lives below in a clean, column-based layout.

File Menu

Quick access to the core areas of Chessboard Magic:

◦ Builder — Create and refine your repertoires with a live board, moves card, and analytics.
◦ Trainer — Practice openings with focused trainers (positions, lines, spaced review, weaknesses).
◦ Practice — Test your prep against engines, databases, and your own repertoire lines.
◦ Library — Import and manage games, studies, and analyses with search and tagging.
◦ Tools — Utilities for scouting, reference trees, imports, and deeper analytics.

Header (right) actions

Utilities and quick settings on the top-right of the header:

◦ Discord — Join the community chat and updates: Discord Server
◦ Language Selector — Choose your preferred application language (instant UI change).
◦ Theme Toggle — Switch between light and dark mode to match your environment.
◦ Start Tour — Launch a guided tour of the page you’re currently viewing.
◦ Help — Open this wiki for feature guides and FAQs.
◦ Notifications — Check for platform notifications and news.
◦ My Profile — Manage account, preferences, layout, and upgrades.
◦ Return Home — Go back to the main site: Chessboard Magic

Workspace layout

The workspace adapts to the application you’re using, but it generally follows a clean three-column structure:

◦ Left: Chessboard (shared across apps).
◦ Middle: App-specific controls and content (e.g., Moves Card, item details, training controls, practice UI).
◦ Right: Analytics cards and supporting tools.

Note: Some pages also support a flexible, drag-and-drop layout that lets you rearrange and resize cards to suit your workflow.

Creating Your First Repertoire

To begin, let’s use the Repertoire Wizard to generate your starter repertoire.

In the Repertoire Card, click on the Repertoire Wizard button to launch the setup dialog.

From here, you can define how your initial repertoire will be built:

◦ Choose your starting position — for example, White from the initial board setup.
◦ Set 10 half-moves (equivalent to 5 full moves).
◦ Add 2 branches to generate principal variations and alternatives.

You’ll see a live preview showing how many moves will be generated. Click Build Repertoire to start the wizard. Once complete, your new repertoire will appear as a fully interactive move tree.

You can explore the move tree by clicking through the moves to preview positions. When you’re ready, click Save Repertoire — it will now appear in your Repertoire Card and become your active selection.

In the Repertoire Card, try the following:

◦ Drag and drop your repertoire into a folder for better organization.
◦ Right-click on a folder to rename it or change its color.
◦ Right-click and select Add Folder to create new organizational groups.
◦ Click the Settings (⚙️) icon on a repertoire to open the edit dialog and explore available options.

Congratulations — you’ve just created and started organizing your first repertoire! You can create as many repertoires as you like within your account’s usage limits.

Tip: Use folders to separate your repertoires by both color and purpose. For example, under “White” you might have “1.e4 Repertoire” and “1.d4 Repertoire,” while under “Black” you could create “Against 1.e4” and “Against 1.d4.” This workflow mirrors how professional players manage their prep and keeps everything intuitive as your database expands.

Exploring Your Repertoire

Now that you’ve created your first repertoire, let’s explore what you can do with it.

The first step is learning how to navigate through your repertoire moves.

Use the navigation buttons located beneath the Chessboard to move forward and backward through the line. When you reach a branching point, a Select Variation dialog will appear, allowing you to choose which branch to explore next.

You can also navigate directly using your keyboard:

◦ Use the Left and Right arrow keys to move through moves in sequence.
◦ When the variation selector appears, use Up and Down to highlight a branch, then press Right to select it or Left to return.

At the top of the Moves Card, you’ll see the name of your active repertoire along with the total number of moves it contains — this helps you keep track of your progress as your repertoire grows.

You can also explore directly from the Moves Card, which displays your move tree. Simply left-click on any move in the Moves Card to instantly jump to that position on the board. This gives you multiple ways to traverse your repertoire — whether through the navigation controls, keyboard, or visual move tree.

Next, let’s experiment with how your repertoire is displayed. In the Moves Card, click on the vertical ⋮ menu in the top-right corner to open the display options. Select Display as Table to switch from a tree layout to a tabular format — this view shows each move, result, and frequency in a structured table.

You can adjust these display modes at any time to suit your current analytical focus.

Tip: Each display mode highlights different aspects of your repertoire — whether you prefer a visual overview, structured statistics, or detailed line-by-line study. Experiment with the views to find the layout that best fits your workflow.

While exploring, you can also expand your repertoire directly from the Chessboard. If you make a new move that doesn’t yet exist in your repertoire, it will be automatically added to your move tree and saved to your profile.

◦ Play a move on the Chessboard to create a new branch in your repertoire.
◦ The move will appear immediately in your Moves Card, linked to the current position.
◦ Continue adding moves to build variations, side-lines, or new ideas directly within your repertoire.

Tip: Adding moves directly from the board is the fastest way to grow your repertoire — experiment with new lines and refine them later using comments, annotations, and engine analysis.

Enriching Your Repertoire

Now that you know how to navigate your repertoire, let’s take it a step further by adding your own insights, comments, and annotations.

Let’s begin by using arrows and highlights directly on the chessboard. You can draw on the board to visualize plans, mark key squares, or emphasize ideas.

◦ Right-click on a square to highlight it.
◦ Right-drag from one square to another to draw an arrow.
◦ Hold Alt for yellow, Ctrl for green, or Shift for red highlights. The default color is blue.

These tools make it easy to visualize key tactical or strategic ideas — for example, highlighting weak squares, important diagonals, or attacking plans.

Tip: Use arrows and square highlights to mark key ideas and reinforce your understanding of the position. A few clear annotations can make your repertoire far more memorable and easier to study later.

Note: If your position contains any highlights or arrows, a small green circle will appear next to the move in the Moves Card. This helps you quickly identify annotated positions while browsing your repertoire.

Beyond visual markers, you can enrich your repertoire even further by adding comments and annotations to individual moves.

In the Moves Card, you’ll notice several tabs. Hover over each tab to reveal a tooltip explaining its purpose. Click on the Comment tab — the first one — to open the comment editor for the currently selected move.

◦ Add your thoughts, explanations, or notes directly in the comment field.
◦ Comments are saved automatically to your profile and will appear in the move tree once you click away.
◦ You can include multiple URLs — these will appear as clickable hyperlinks in the Moves Card display.
◦ Toggle Show Board Preview to display a mini chessboard for the current position within the Moves Card.

Experiment by selecting any move, adding a short comment, and entering a reference link — for example, to a Lichess study or YouTube analysis. Then toggle the Board Preview on and off to see how it enhances your ability to review positions directly from the Moves Card.

Tip: Use comments to record key takeaways, strategic explanations, or external study links. These become powerful reference points when revisiting your repertoire later.

Note: All comments, links, and preview settings apply to the currently selected move and are stored automatically in your repertoire profile.

In addition to written comments, you can enrich your repertoire by applying formal chess annotations to moves and positions.

Click on the Annotations tab — the second tab in the Moves Card. Here you’ll find a range of annotation options divided into three clear categories:

◦ Move Annotations — Mark the quality of the move, such as Good Move (!), Blunder (??), or Inaccuracy (?).
◦ Position Annotations — Indicate the evaluation of the position, such as White is better, Black is winning, or Equal.
◦ Observational Annotations — Highlight additional insights like Initiative, Development lead, or King attack. You can select multiple.

Apply a few annotations to your selected move to see how they appear both on the chessboard and in the Moves Card display. Each annotation is saved automatically and linked to the current move, allowing you to visually distinguish critical moments in your repertoire.

Tip: Use annotations to summarize move quality and key positional ideas at a glance. Over time, this builds a visual language across your repertoire, helping you recognize recurring themes and errors.

Once your repertoire is built and annotated, you can take it a step further by analyzing it with the integrated Stockfish engine to gain objective evaluations.

Find and click on the Analyze Repertoire tab, then select Analyze Repertoire from the menu. This will start a background task that runs all your repertoire moves through Stockfish 17.1 Lite (Web Version) to calculate engine evaluations for each position.

◦ Once started, you’ll see the task’s progress appear in the bottom-right corner of the page.
◦ When the analysis is complete, a new Display Mode becomes available in your repertoire view.
◦ Open the vertical ⋮ menu in the header and look for:
- • Display by Tree (Highlight Eval) — Highlights your move tree based on engine evaluation.
- • Hide / Show Evaluations — Toggles the visibility of evaluation values across your repertoire.

Analyzing your repertoire not only provides deeper insights into each move’s objective strength, but also unlocks new analytics tools for deeper study.

Note: All analysis is processed locally in your browser using Stockfish 17.1 Lite (Web Version), ensuring speed, privacy, and convenience.

Analytics Cards

Now that you know how to build, explore, and analyze your repertoire, let’s take a look at the world of Analytics Cards — one of the most powerful features in the Repertoire Builder.

On the right-most column of the Builder Page, you’ll find a collection of Analytics Cards. At the top of this column, there’s a row of toggle buttons that control which cards are visible. Hover over each button to view a tooltip explaining its function — since there are many cards, you may choose to display only the ones most relevant to your study.

◦ Click on the vertical ⋮ menu to reveal additional cards not shown in the main row.
◦ Once a card is toggled on, use the switch on the right-hand side of its header to enable or disable it.

Note: This is an ever-expanding system — new cards are continually being added. You can view the current list at Analytics Card Overview for detailed descriptions of each card.

Let’s explore three of the useful cards:

Stockfish Card

The Stockfish Card runs live evaluations of the current position using Stockfish 17.1 Lite (Web Version). You can configure both the number of lines (multi-PV) and the analysis depth to suit your needs.

Each row displays the evaluation score, best move, and continuation line. You can interact directly with these engine suggestions to expand your repertoire:

◦ Left-click on a move to add it directly to your repertoire.
◦ Right-click on a move to add it along with a comment containing the evaluation, depth, and win percentage.
◦ Click on any move within the continuation line to add the entire line to your repertoire.

This makes the Stockfish Card an incredibly efficient tool for building out your repertoire using engine-driven analysis, allowing you to explore improvements, generate variations, and refine your preparation seamlessly.

Try adding individual Stockfish moves to your repertoire — then experiment by adding a complete line to see how it expands your move tree.

Note: When Stockfish is enabled, you will see an evaluation bar to the left of the Chessboard.

Masters Database

The Masters Database Card shows how titled players and grandmasters have played from the same position in historical games. Each move is listed with its frequency, win–draw–loss breakdown, and percentage of games played. If a move exists in your repertoire, it will be highlighted in green.

You can also browse the underlying master games directly within the card. Click on a move to view representative games from the Masters Database, and import any of these games or lines into your repertoire with a single click — a great way to study how top players handle the same positions you’re learning.

This visual and interactive link between master practice and your own repertoire helps you align your preparation with proven, high-level strategies.

Try adding a few moves to your repertoire, then explore the related master games. Click to open a game, study how it develops, and add it directly to your repertoire to deepen your understanding of real-world play.

Lichess Database Card

The Lichess Database Card provides aggregated online statistics from millions of community games on Lichess.org. You can quickly see how popular each move is among club and online players, including performance trends and common follow-ups.

◦ As with the Masters Database Card, moves that already exist in your repertoire are highlighted in green.

At the bottom of the Lichess Card, you’ll find a Filter option. Click it to adjust the rating range — for example, 1600–2000 — to focus on moves and trends most relevant to your playing strength. This allows you to see what players at your level commonly choose and how successful those moves are.

Try exploring a few moves in the Lichess Database and add them to your repertoire. Experiment with importing lines that fit your style or rating range, and compare how they differ from master play or engine recommendations.

Tip: Explore the other Analytics Cards — toggle them to be visible and enable them. These cards are the true superpower of the Repertoire Builder, and gaining familiarity with them will help you supercharge your repertoire-building process.

Exploring Your Library

Now that you’ve gained familiarity with the Builder, let’s explore the Library — where you can import, browse, and study your own games.

Click on Library in the main menu, then select Import. Choose either Chess.com or Lichess.org depending on where you play, and import 20 Games to load your most recent twenty games. Once the import is complete (or cancelled), you’ll see a summary showing the import status — including how many games were successfully added. From here, you can begin filtering and searching through your games to review specific ones of interest.

Note: Usernames for Chess.com and Lichess are case-sensitive. Make sure they match exactly as they appear on each platform to ensure accurate game matching.

Use the Filters to quickly narrow down your games — by result, color, date range, opening, or other criteria. For larger collections, use the pagination controls at the bottom of the Library to move between pages of results efficiently.

On the far right, you’ll notice the Repertoire Performance section — a dynamic comparison of your imported games against your repertoire. To enable accurate matching, make sure your username is set correctly in your profile so your imported games can be linked to your repertoire lines. This gives you an instant overview of how well your preparation translates into practical play.

Click on any game in the Library to open it. You’ll immediately recognize the familiar layout — a Chessboard, Moves Card, and Analytics Cards, just like in the Builder. Within the Analytics Cards area, toggle on and enable the Repertoire Notation card. If the position exists in your repertoire and includes comments, you can copy those insights directly into your Library item. This allows you to analyze your own games using the same notes, ideas, and highlights you’ve developed during your repertoire study.

Tip: Reuse your repertoire comments, arrows, and highlights to strengthen your post-game analysis and reinforce your learning.

Note: The Library mirrors the Builder layout — everything you’ve learned about navigation, comments, annotations, and Analytics Cards applies here too. Take the time to analyze one of your own games to solidify your repertoire knowledge.

Now that you’ve populated your Library, return to the Builder page and enable the My Library Moves Analytics Card. Explore this view to see how your own games connect with your repertoire. This feature lets you reference your personal library while building your repertoire — highlighting moves that have appeared in your real games but aren’t yet covered in your preparation. It’s a powerful way to bridge the gap between study and practice, ensuring your repertoire evolves alongside your actual play experience.

Self Exploration

Now that you’ve seen how to set up your repertoire and import your games, it’s time for some self-exploration. Check out the following sections to continue your journey and make the most of the Repertoire Builder experience:

◦ Trainer — The Trainers in the Repertoire Builder provide structured, interactive ways to practice and reinforce your repertoire. Each trainer focuses on a specific method — from drilling positions and full lines to revisiting weaknesses, studying master games, and exploring candidate moves. By training regularly, you’ll strengthen recall, sharpen calculation, and build lasting confidence in your openings.
◦ Practice — The Practice feature allows you to set up a position on the board and play it out against different analytics cards such as Stockfish, ChessDB, and others. This lets you test your repertoire choices in real time, explore alternative continuations, and gain practical experience applying your preparation against powerful analytical tools.
◦ Tools — The Tools in the Repertoire Builder provide powerful ways to analyze, explore, and improve your chess. They connect to online services like Lichess and Chess.com, import your own games and PGNs, and deliver focused insights into your play. From building reference trees and scouting players to tracking time usage and opening priorities, these tools help you study smarter and target what matters most.
◦ Preferences — Go to My Profile and then Edit Profile to set your personal preferences. You can choose your preferred piece set, adjust the chessboard theme, and enable move sounds.

Tip: Explore each of these areas at your own pace — they’re designed to complement one another and help you transform your repertoire knowledge into practical chess strength.

I hope you’ve found this guide both informative and inspiring — and that you’re excited to explore even more. This guide is just the beginning; the Repertoire Builder platform is full of hidden gems, advanced tools, and creative ways to study chess. The Chessboard Magic Wiki documents the entire platform in detail, so use it as your go-to reference whenever you want to learn more. And if you ever have questions, feedback, or ideas, don’t hesitate to connect with us on our community Discord — we’d love to hear from you and help you on your journey.

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