This is overwhelming.

It sure is... According to his profile, he's complted 54 games in 4 months. Maybe a slight exaggeration...

I've played 550 games in these past 3 months alone when you count the ones I played here and on lichess. Look closer before you imply I'm a liar. 4 months ago I played 1 game on chess.com , and the rest of the 54 games chess.com games I played in the past 3 days because Lichess was having technical issues. Look at my lichess profile

http://en.lichess.org/@/Kevin5

Tonight I played a few blitz games which is something I rarely do. 99% of my games are 30 minutes per side. That account I created on July 25th of this year and I have 503 games played 99% of which are 30 minutes per side. Before that account I had another but deleted it.

The rest of you (besides DisgruntledSheep) thanks for your comments. Looks like I'll go back to studying tactics and endgame.

glad if i helped in any way even if it left you rejecting the line i used at least it was looked at by you good luck and good chess 

Basic development, pawn structure intact, recognizing and using/avoiding pins and forks will get you through to the middle game in most games. Don't burn yourself out trying to be an opening encyclopedia. It's supposed to be fun.

That IM is a stupid idiot the english is a good all around opening and can transpose into alot of variations. Lets say its kinda like the sicilian with black colors.

He didn't say it was a bad opening, he said bad for beginners.

Very bad for beginners. To use it to its fullest, you need good understanding of most QP openings, reversed Sicilian formations, independent English setups, a good sense of positional play, and the ability to handle transpositions and reversed-colour openings well. It's much easier to actively play for a good middlegame with other choices.

Thanks for the link. Can someone please explain this entry from Lasker's rules for opening: "Do not pin the adverse King Knight (ie. by Bg5) before your opponent has castled."

I do this all the time as black so apparently it's an immediate change I can make to improve my game, but an understanding of why this is poor play would be helpful.

I think there are some tactics if you pin the king's knight too soon, for example I've had this happen twice when I was playing the Budapest Gambit and my opponent declined by pushing the pawn by.

Also there's something you can do in the Smith-Morra gambit if they try to pin the king's knight too soon with bishop captures f7.

@agile :

Because this might just help your opponent attack your own king with a pawn storm, like in this famous game :

Thank you both for the interesting examples. I learned something today.