The opening explorer
For every position, the explorer answers one simple question: what gets played here, and how does it go? It shows via View > Opening explorer (Cmd + Option + E), below the analysis panel.
Three sources
The selector at the top of the panel picks the population of games consulted:
| Source | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Library | Your own games that went through this position — how many, and the moves you played there |
| Lichess — masters | The master games database: theory in practice |
| Lichess — all players | Millions of amateur games: what actually gets played at your level |
For each move played from the position: the number of games and the win / draw / loss split, as a colored bar. Clicking a move plays it on the board — you can walk down a whole opening this way.
The use that builds progress
The masters and amateur databases tell two different stories — and that’s the whole point. A move can be theoretically correct (masters play it) yet treacherous in practice (amateurs collapse in it), or the reverse: a theoretically dubious line that scores heavily at 1500 because the refutation is hard to find.
The Library source turns the explorer into a mirror: on a recurring opening position, it shows at a glance your past choices and their results. If a move shows 2 wins for 8 losses there, the statistics section will have nothing to add — the conclusion draws itself.