I have a lot of my own chess games in pgn format, Im wondering if there is a tool that examines my games and suggests what books I should buy to improve?
1 Answers
Full disclosure: I am answering my own question. I recently finished the alpha version of an app that maps chess games to diagrammed positions in chess books (https://www.thechesscite.com/).
The primary goals is to help you to make better choices about what books to buy and to help chess authors cite their colleagues. My other goal is to streamline how you study chess.
See more on the site. I’m still very early in development but have a lot of features planned. Hopefully I’ll see a little interest from the chess community and grow the tool over time. Would be happy to take feedback; however, be aware there are some minor quality of life issues I already know about, and I am a one person team. I'm eager to share this tool even if it's just getting started.

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2The idea of the site is brilliant. Excuse my question if its to early to ask, but are you planning to implement a import games fro Lichess or a database feature as manually entering a lot of PGNs would be infeasible. – AKP2002 Apr 21 '20 at 04:21
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2Second the brilliant - a quick check of a Pirc picked one of the books I would recommend. A second question - what books are currently covered? A link on the page to give an idea of what might be suggested could be useful. – Ian Bush Apr 21 '20 at 07:11
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2Question: Does this only cover opening books base on the opening played or does it go deeper by analyzing the games and say if you miss tactics it would suggest books on tactics? – user1583209 Apr 21 '20 at 09:54
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2@David the spam flag description says "does not disclose the author's affiliation" - but they do. As long as their promotion is limited to a few posts, there's absolutely no problem. – Glorfindel Apr 21 '20 at 10:43
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1@AKP2002 I'd be really cool to have a button on lichess that sends your png to the site. I could allow multi-PNG uploads for one's entire game collection but I was worried about hitting the server too hard (some game collections can be rather large). These are definitely features on the agenda though! – nak3c Apr 21 '20 at 11:26
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1@IanBush To view what books are in the database you have to be signed in (Its free and secure); then you can view the books tab: currently there are 21 books in the database. A priority is to get this number to about 100. New books are fairly easy to index but I'm trying to keep this legit by having a personal copy of the books listed; possibly, I could release the indexing code and let users send results. – nak3c Apr 21 '20 at 11:31
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1@user1583209. That's a really cool idea, and it's feasible! There's a lot of cool stuff you could do, I might put a link to a straw poll on the site where users can vote on what feature I implement next. – nak3c Apr 21 '20 at 11:34
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@nak3c yes a poll would be a great way to gather ideas. Also, if you need any help on the project many people would be more than happy to help you out. – AKP2002 Apr 21 '20 at 12:00
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1@AKP2002 I think what Ill do first is set up a git repo with the extraction code and detailed instructions how to use it (it's pure python). Interested contributors can run on their own pdf's and forward me the output. That way I don't deal with any pirated pdf documents. This could help get enough books in the database to see some actual results when users search their game. After that Ill look into coordinating new features. I got some IRL stuff so it'll be about a week but will post updates here unless there is a more suitable reddit thread or something. – nak3c Apr 21 '20 at 13:59
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@Glorfindel So it would be OK for me to create a question on "how to improve?" and then an answer offering my coaching services? – David Apr 23 '20 at 12:16
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1@Glorfindel I totally get where you're coming from and its a good discussion to have. My two observations: (a) biostars - which I use a lot - has a dedicated forum for posting tools and here you don't have that avenue; (b) I don't intend to make any money off the site. I accept donations but Id say Im raising awareness, not making a promotion. – nak3c Apr 23 '20 at 19:03
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1@AKP2002 if you or anyone is following this I added a batch upload feature for multi-pgn files and expanded to include youtube videos. I had to reset accounts and the content is still a bit thin but the tool is a little more fully formed. – nak3c May 23 '20 at 02:39
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