Lilit Mkrtchian (1) – How to create an opening repertoire with ChessBase for the rest of your life
with Lilit Mkrtchian
So how do you prepare for a tournament with ChessBase, Fritz and the Megagdatabase?
We too wanted to know the answer to this question and asked a professional chess player. In our six-part series, Lilit Mkrtchian guides us through tournament preparation, showing us how to build an opening repertoire, sharpening your skills with tactical training, and giving us many more tips, tricks, ideas, and inspiration.
In this walkthrough, we’ll take a look over Lilit’s shoulder and discover her repertoire, opponent setups, and we’ll certainly analyze some of her played games in depth.
Of course, we also address the moment when you know your next opponent and can catch him with your well-aimed preparation. The Armenian IM will show us some examples of how this worked well.
A nice guide on how your The next tournament may be more successful.
- 1:55 – When does a professional chess player decide to take part in a tournament?
- 3:10 – Team tournament and individual tournament are very different, right?
- 4:00 – Lilit is generally preparing for a tournament.
- 6:09 – How long before the start of the tournament do you start preparing?
- 7:28 – You work on your openings all the time. Can you show us what your ChessBase folders look like?
- 8:35 – Lilit has over 750 gigabytes of opening files.
- 10:25 – How do you prepare your opening repertoire with ChessBase and the Megadatabase?
- 14:27 – One of the most important features in ChessBase? – The “Reference” option.
- 16:34 – The Megagdatabase lets me find the latest variations for my opening.
- 18:30 – Save variant (Maybe not the way ChessBase intended, but whatever)
- 21:54 – Searching the mega database for new openings seems like a nice hobby!
- 23:01 – Lilit tries many openings in order not to get bored. That’s why she collects so much.
- 23:51 – Preparing each day is like preparing for a tournament for a lifetime.
Lilit Mkrtchian is an International Master from Armenia and received the IM title in 2003.
She was one of the best players in the world in the 2010s and has represented her national team at the Olympics since 1996.
In 2003 she won the gold medal with her Armenian team at the European Women’s Championships in Bulgaria, Plovdiv.
In addition, Mkrtchian won the Armenian women’s chess champion four times.
In 2015, IM won the individual gold medal on board two at the World Women’s Team Championships in China, Chengdu.
She remains one of the strongest chess players in Armenia, coaches several students and is an active player in chess leagues and tournaments.
We interviewed Lilit in 2020 as part of our series “The best in”
Lilit lives with her husband in Germany and enjoys chess almost every day.