Practice Openings in Noctie: Pick a Line or Import PGN

Noctie’s opening trainer lets you practice openings in two ways: pick a named opening and Noctie replies with the most common human responses — traps included — or import your own repertoire as a PGN and drill it in full games. In both cases Noctie follows the opening until you deviate and can hint the correct move when you lift a piece, so you memorize the line while playing a realistic game rather than clicking through a tree.

Why practice openings against a human-like AI

Opening trainers usually test you against a fixed tree. The problem is that people online do not play the tree — they play sidelines, transpose, and set traps. Because Noctie is trained on over a billion human games, it plays the moves people at your rating actually choose. Practising the Sicilian against Noctie means meeting the replies you will actually see on Chess.com or Lichess, and then playing the resulting middlegame with instant feedback on every move.

Option 1 — Pick a common opening

1. Start a new game against Noctie.
2. Choose an opening from the list of common named openings — the built-in choices include lines such as the Sicilian Defense, Ruy Lopez, Réti Opening, Caro-Kann Defense, London System, Pirc Defense, Englund Gambit, Giuoco Piano, English Opening, Benoni Defense, Semi-Slav Defense and Queen’s Gambit Declined.
3. Play. Noctie stays in the chosen opening and answers with realistic human moves until you leave the line.
4. When you are unsure of the next book move, lift a piece: Noctie can hint the correct move so you learn the sequence as you go.

5. Finish the game and review the feedback colors — the opening is only useful if you can play the middlegame that follows.

Option 2 — Import your own repertoire (PGN)

1. Build or export your repertoire as a PGN, annotations included. The easiest way is to create it with an external tool such as Lichess studies, Chesstempo, ChessBase or Chessbook, then export it as PGN.
2. In Noctie’s opening trainer, import it as an opening book, then start a game with that opening book active instead of a named opening.
3. Noctie follows the book’s moves for its side and lets you drill yours; it tells you when a variation is finished or when either side deviates, and you can restart the line at any point without resigning.
4. Import several opening books (for example one as White, one against 1.e4, one against 1.d4), organize them into folders, and activate more than one at once to practice your full repertoire.

Noctie also ships pre-made, annotated opening books and lessons for learning a new opening, and the trainer can play bonus moves that take Noctie off-book to test how you handle surprises. Both the February 2026 opening-books launch and the May 2026 improvements are logged in the changelog.

Practising an opening you keep losing

A practical loop that works well in Noctie:

• Play the opening three or four times in a row against Noctie at your level.
• After each game, look at where the first orange or red move appeared. In openings this is very often the same move — a piece developed to the wrong square, or a pawn break played too early.
• Solve the flashcards Noctie generates from those games. Because they come from your own opening mistakes, the queue becomes a personal opening course.
• When the first mistake moves later into the game, the opening is learned; move on to the middlegame plans.

Openings and difficulty level

Noctie plays the opening at the strength you are matched with — a Knight-level Noctie meets your Sicilian the way a ~1000 player would, a Rook-level Noctie the way a ~2000 player would. If you want to test a sharp line against stronger replies, play it against a higher tier; if you want to build confidence in a new system, drill it at your own level first.

What you need

Opening choice and opening-book import are included in every Noctie plan (€14 monthly or €8/month billed yearly), and the free 7-day trial covers them, so you can import a repertoire and play it on day one.