How to Import Chessable Lines into Openings.gg

You've spent good money on Chessable courses. Maybe you bought the Lifetime Repertoire for the Sicilian Najdorf, a Short & Sweet on the London System, and a deep dive on the Caro-Kann. Each one is solid on its own. But the moment you want to do something Chessable doesn't support - like combining lines from different courses, mixing in ideas from a YouTube video, or adding your own analysis - you're stuck.

Chessable is great at what it does: structured courses with built-in spaced repetition. But it's a walled garden. Your lines live inside Chessable, and they stay there. You can't merge two courses together, you can't add a sideline you found in a Lichess study, and you can't annotate moves with your own notes alongside the author's.

That's the gap Openings.gg fills. You can import lines from Chessable (and YouTube, Lichess, PGN files, or just type them in manually), combine everything into a single repertoire tree, add your own annotations, and train it all with spaced repetition. One place for your entire opening preparation.

This guide walks you through exactly how to get your Chessable lines into Openings.gg, step by step.

Why You'd Want to Import from Chessable

Before we get into the how, let's talk about the why. If Chessable already has spaced repetition, why move your lines somewhere else?

You want to combine multiple sources. Maybe your Caro-Kann repertoire is 70% from a Chessable course, 20% from a GothamChess video, and 10% your own analysis after getting crushed in a blitz game. On Chessable, those live in separate silos. On Openings.gg, they merge into one tree.

You want to add your own lines. Chessable courses are the author's repertoire, not yours. Maybe you prefer a different move order in the French Advance, or you found a tricky sideline in the Scotch Game that the course doesn't cover. On Openings.gg, you can add, edit, and annotate freely.

You want a single place to train everything. If your repertoire spans three Chessable courses, two Lichess studies, and a notebook of ideas, you're juggling multiple platforms. Importing everything into Openings.gg means one daily training session covers your entire repertoire.

You want to own your preparation. Courses get updated, removed, or restructured. Your personal repertoire on Openings.gg is yours. You control every line, every annotation, every branch.

How It Works

Openings.gg has a text import feature that's surprisingly good at parsing chess content from different sources. Here's the basic flow:

1. Copy a line or variation from Chessable
2. Open the import dialog on Openings.gg
3. Paste the text
4. Openings.gg extracts the moves and annotations automatically
5. Review and add the line to your repertoire

This means you don't need to manually reformat anything. Copy the text as-is from Chessable, paste it in, and the moves appear ready to add to your repertoire tree.

Step-by-Step: Importing a Chessable Line

Step 1: Find the Line on Chessable

Open your Chessable course and navigate to the specific variation you want to import. This works best with individual lines or chapters rather than trying to grab an entire course at once. Think of it as cherry-picking the lines that matter most to your repertoire.

For example, say you're working on a Sicilian Najdorf course and you want to import the main line of the English Attack. Navigate to that specific chapter or variation.

Step 2: Copy the Moves

Select the move text from the Chessable page. You want to grab the notation with move numbers - something like:

> 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.f3 Be6 9.Qd2 O-O 10.O-O-O Nbd7

Include any annotations or commentary if you want them preserved. The parser handles mixed text and moves gracefully - it'll extract the chess notation and keep relevant text as annotations.

Don't worry about getting the selection perfect. If you accidentally grab some extra text (headers, navigation elements, author bio), the parser filters it out. It's looking for chess moves, and it's good at finding them.

Step 3: Open the Import Dialog on Openings.gg

Go to Openings.gg and open the repertoire where you want to add this line. If you don't have a repertoire yet, create one - you can organize by color (White repertoire, Black repertoire) or by opening system.

Click the Import button to open the import dialog. You'll see a text area where you can paste your content.

Step 4: Paste and Review

Paste the text you copied from Chessable into the import field. Openings.gg parses it immediately and shows you the extracted moves in a clean format.

Take a moment to review:

• Are the moves correct?
• Did the annotations come through?
• Is the line complete?

Step 5: Add to Your Repertoire

Confirm the import, and the line gets added to your repertoire tree. It automatically merges with any existing lines - so if you already have moves through 5.Nc3 in your Najdorf repertoire, the new line branches off from there rather than creating a duplicate.

This merge behavior is one of the most useful parts of the import flow. You can import overlapping lines from different sources and they'll weave together into a single coherent tree.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Imports

Import Line by Line, Not Course by Course

Resist the urge to import an entire Chessable course in one shot. Instead, import the specific lines you actually want in your repertoire. A typical course has dozens of variations, but you probably only face a handful of them in your games. Import the main lines and critical sidelines first, then add deeper variations as you need them.

Combine Sources for Better Coverage

Here's where Openings.gg really shines. Say you're building a repertoire against the Italian Game:

• Main lines from your Chessable course on 1...e5
• A sideline you saw in a Hanging Pawns video on YouTube
• An improvement you found in a Lichess master database
• Your own analysis after losing to a tricky 6.d4 push

Add Your Own Annotations

After importing a Chessable line, go through it and add your own notes. The course author explains things from their perspective, but what matters is what you need to remember. Add annotations like:

• "Opponent usually plays Bd7 here at my level"
• "Key idea: push f5 before they can play f4"
• "I keep forgetting this move - the knight MUST go to d5"

Use Spaced Repetition to Lock It In

Importing lines is step one. Training them is what makes them stick. Once your lines are in Openings.gg, the spaced repetition system takes over. You'll see positions from your repertoire during daily training, play the correct move, and the system schedules reviews based on how well you remembered.

The beauty of having everything in one place is that a single 10-minute training session covers your Ruy Lopez main line from Chessable, the anti-London sideline from YouTube, and the Queen's Gambit improvement you found on your own. No switching between platforms, no separate review queues.

What Else Can You Import?

Chessable is just one source. Openings.gg supports importing from:

• PGN files - Export from any chess software (ChessBase, SCID, Lichess studies) and import directly
• YouTube videos - Copy the move list from video descriptions or on-screen notation
• Lichess studies - Copy the moves from any public study
• Plain text - Just type or paste moves in standard notation
• Other websites - Any source that displays chess moves in algebraic notation

Building Your Unified Repertoire

The end goal isn't just to move lines from Chessable to another platform. It's to build a unified repertoire - a single source of truth for your entire opening preparation.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

1. Start with a foundation. Import the main lines from your Chessable courses for the openings you play regularly. For a typical club player, that might be 3-5 key openings: something for White, something against 1.e4, something against 1.d4, and maybe a backup weapon or two.

1. Layer in other sources. Fill gaps with lines from YouTube, Lichess, or your own analysis. Found a great video on the Kings Indian Defense? Import the critical lines. Discovered a trappy sideline in the Scandinavian? Add it.

1. Personalize everything. Go through your imported lines and add annotations in your own words. Mark the moves you find tricky. Note the plans and ideas that matter at your level.

1. Train daily. Ten minutes of spaced repetition keeps your entire repertoire fresh. The system prioritizes lines you're about to forget, so your study time is always spent where it matters most.

1. Evolve over time. As you play games and discover new positions, add them to your tree. As your understanding deepens, update your annotations. Your repertoire grows with you.

The Bottom Line

Chessable courses are a great starting point, but they're not the finish line. Your opening repertoire should be yours - a personalized, unified collection of lines from every source that's helped you improve.

Openings.gg makes this easy. Copy from Chessable, paste into the import dialog, and your lines are ready to combine, annotate, and train. No reformatting, no manual data entry, no switching between five different platforms during your study session.

Your best repertoire isn't locked inside any single course. It's the one you've built yourself, from every source you trust, trained until it's second nature. Start importing your lines today and bring your entire preparation under one roof.