While I'm not completly new to the game of chess, recently my openings have sucked bad. I try to switch things up from game to game to improve but I always find my pieces held down and constricted. Any suggestions? 

what openings are you playing?

try e4. it's easier to learn

The best strategy takes place in the first 7 moves... Every move should be with a different piece. And every one of those moves should be towards the 4 squares in the center of the board. You should try to get your men to occupy those squares or protect the pieces that are in there. Then you should castle your king to protect it. This may not guarantee a win, but it will put you in good position and you can then look for any of your opponent's pieces that are undefended and then attack them.

Cant say that Im playin any specific opening. Usually starts with e4 and goes from there. AS you can see form my rating that hasnt been working out to well.

my advice, if you are completly new in the openings, you can inform yourself on wikipedia about some most common themes how to open the game. ( in fact, all the opening are listed there, not much information but enough for a start). look there and find what you would like to play. Choose your first move as white ( e4 for example) and openings against white e4/d4 as Black ( for example French defense 1. ... e6 against e4) and then work on it

First the first 5-10 moves, try to:

a.) Control the center 4 squares.

b.) Develop your minor peices where they can share in the action, whether that be on the sidelines or especially the center.

c.) Castle and use the new rook to gain pressure on the center.

d.)Overall put your opponent in a defensive position.

Rember, never give up, never surrender, never draw.

Go buy modern chess openings-14 and try out a ton of them in blitz games until you find one you like. Then, consult the book for your slower games here until you memorize the variations. Also, try to stick with one opening for white (whether that be e4, d4, c4, f4...whatever) and try to settle with one opening as black against e4 and one against d4.

All good advice.  I would add that once you find a few openings that you are fairly comfortable with, concentrate on your middle game and end game.  It is easy to put too much emphasis on the opening.  You can be crushed in the opening, or just emerge with an unbearable position, but most of the time you will survive to the middle game or even the end game.  Good endgame knowledge will help your middle game, and good tactical skills (read middlegame) are beneficial throughout the game.  The same cannot be said about the opening.  In depth knowledge of the Ruy Lopez (what many beginners first focus on) doesn't help much against the Sicilian, and in depth knowledge of any opening to move 15 doesn't compensate for weak tacticals or endgame skill.  You really aren't supposed to memerize openings per se, but rather to understand the moves behind them.  Most books on opening theory just assume that the reader understands this, but many of us don't, so we wind up just memorizing moves.  While this can save time in the opening against a player who makes the proper moves against the opening that you have studied, it doesn't help you much when they play an opening or line that you havn't learned.  Mere memorization  also makes you less likely to capitalize on an opponents mistake when they play a weak move in the opening, since you tend to memorize the strong replies and not the blunders.  There are a few books that try to explain the reasoning for opening moves (Not MCO14) and I would recomend that you try to locate one of these.  I think that one of them is called The Ideas behind the Chess Openings but I don't remember the author. 

I agree with bill... even from a beginer stand point. Chessmaster has some great end game strat, but includes openings with guiding principles. They also include puzzles to test your retention. Best 40 bucks I spent

well... besides my chess.com membership of coarse!

Well you resigned to Highflyer 3 times... all on move 5... for no reason.

 

This is probably a bad opening strategy.

Play the opening with the following points in mind and allow yourself to study ONE opening in depth for the purposes of understanding the ideas behind it:

 1) never move the same piece more than once in the opening (the only exception to this rule is when you see a clear advantage that you can gain, i.e. material, by moving the same piece more than once.) Moving a bishop or knight in the opening is called developing a piece. The player with more development almost always has the advantage in position.

 2) move your pieces so that you accomplish the following things:

-attack the central 4 squares more times overall than your opponent

-immobilize your opponents pieces that are attacking the center (for example pin your opponent's knights that are attacking the center with one of your pieces)

3) keep the following in mind when making your moves: 

-make your pawn structure such that it gives at least one of your bishops an open diagonal. This bishop will be your good bishop for most of the game, you do not want to loose him!

-never trade a bishop for a knight unless: it is a forced defense, the trade brings you an attack or gives you the better exchange after a few more moves, it is clear the game position is closed for both sides for most of the following game, you are extremely cramped in your position, or the knight you are trading for is in an "outpost"--an outpost is a square such that none of your pawns can attack it anymore.

 -move your knights toward the center, and if possible place a knight in an outpost (a knight in an outpost can exceed the value of a rook, especially if your opponent has few minor pieces that can attack it) but don't be too quick to try to occupy the center squares if it will only give your opponent the opportunity to kick it off with a pawn and hence develop his pawn structure for free

 -when capturing a pawn, capture towards the middle if you cannot figure out which way to capture. 

 -do not isolate your pawns or double up your pawns on a file as this can be a weakness.

5) At your level your opponent will make mistakes in the opening, learn to crush them for these! Everything I have written above I told you to keep in mind when opening, but keep these exact same ideas in mind when you are considering attacking  in the opening; if your opponent violates one of these ideas keep a mental note of it, you may not be able to exploit it right away but 3 or 4 moves down the road this weakness may be exasperated!