Some time ago I found an interesting option in ChessBase Light 2007.  Now I started to use it quite a bit, so I decided to share the experience.   If you have a pgn file, containing your games (with standard header),  you can analyze the effectiveness of your openings.  You open pgn file in ChessBase , sort it by ECO code, select the files with required opening, then go to Tools/Statistics.

I used the blitz games from FICS. Here are the stats for Ruy Lopez, White, Old Steinitz defense. It’s considered hard for Black and I feel comfortable playing it, which is confirmed by my performance rating, +100.

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Another sample – French, Black. Performance rating doesn’t look very exciting – ~-40.

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But just a second –  it’s a new opening for me, which I started to study this year.  So, let’s see how I progressed. Here is my first month, performance rating – ~-75:

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Here are my May’s games, result – ~+30. So it’s ~100 improvement in 3 month, 400 in a year, looks like 3 more years studying/playing and I’ll play the French like GM :) .

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Of course, there is random factor for blitz, where the result could be decided by 
blunder, but I think if you have enough games, this factor would be eliminated because the mistakes are mutual.

Of course there is random factor for blitz, where the result could be decided by blunder, but I think if you have enough games, this factor would be eliminated because the mistakes are mutual.