Winning Openings

Openings !

I get so many questions. What should I play with White ? and with Black ? Is this a good opening to beat a player at 1500 rating ? what about 2000 rated players ?

Here's the trick. Life is too short to spend months studying the theory. this would require to read chess opening books cover to cover.

But there are many other books one shall discover.

Here's what NOT TO DO. Lets take the Sicilian Defense.

Here's a position you could consider playing with White, but this requires so much work and time and memory.

in this position, Black could try at least 3 moves you will need to study

and then this leads to sharp positions, for instance ..Be6 may lead to this

White to play, and you need to decide whether Na5 or Nd5 or Kb1 is the right move here.

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This is not just with 1..c5

The following would require enormous work to study , understand and memorize with the caro-kann

once again the Caro-Kann defense with the advance variation is played at top level.

So you would need to decide here whether to take on f6 or not. This is very complex and requires many hours to really master. Imagine if you buy 10 opening chessable courses, watch 100 hours of videos to create an opening repertoire  and go over all possible moves for White and Black ! as well as keeping up with recent games !  not my cup of tea.

coffee is more up my alley !

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So here's my suggestion. either way with white, you can start with the main move 1.e4 but soon enough avoid the standard main positions ( tabyia) and go for a sideline you will be comfortable.

The sideline will not have as many games played, so less materials to review. Ideally you want to set up traps, i.e logical moves for Black may lead to trouble right away.

Finally, if you keep repeating these lines, and study after your games, you will get a feel for how to play those and your opponents will be surprised. In blitz or bullet, being surprised can be a real issue, since the time pressure will force your opponent to make a quick decision.

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EXAMPLES ?