How to study chess openings
Quick about myself: I am a chess coach at the local chess club, for the younger players with a rating up to 1450 Elo. My own rating varies between 1750- 1850.
Chess openings
I get asked a lot from my students regarding, opening theory. They want to learn specific variations, or systems that can be used against almost anything. Examples could be: London system, Kings Indian Attack (don’t to be confused with king’s Indian defense) or Stonewall.
All these things are working, but what if your opponent does something you are not prepared for? I always say to my students: I can learn you to understand the opening, but I will not give you a lot of move orders, before you understand basic plans and Ideas of the opening you study. For example: I think these systems is a wonderful idea, of plans and ideas. The only problem is that you need to understand why, you do this move order. I have seen many beginner’s games, where they play London. A lot of these beginners do their plan as always, d4, Bf4, e3, c3, Nf3, Bd3 and so on. And this could work. But sometimes, you have to be open for the possibility to push the c pawn to c4 instead of c3. It depends on your opponents moves. And this mistake of always playing c3 could be avoided if, you take your time to understand why you play c3 in the first place.
Step 1 learn the basics
Before learning specific openings, you need to know the basics. Basic opening principles is: Take/challenge the center (direct/indirect), development of pieces, King safety. These basics are a need to know for all chess players, but in reality, they are also one of the biggest dangers you meet. Cause sometimes there are exceptions. And when you have to make one of these exceptions, these basics usually do more harm than good.
Step 2 Choose an opening
When you choose an opening to study, you should look at your current level of chess understanding. Not every opening is good and there are some that are to complicated for people under 2000. An perfect example of such an opening is the Najdorf. Najdorf is a really complicated Sicilian variation, where you chess understanding is being brutally tested. Another thing to think of, is that chess is about closed and open positions, and most positions is open, so you should start with e4 in the start of your chess career. Here I am talking from experience, as soon as I started playing longer time controls and normal tournaments, I started playing 1. C4. I have played the English opening for 7 years, and first now I am seriously starting to play and understand open positions with 1. E4.
Step 3 Plans and Ideas
You have chosen an opening. Learn the moves that make that opening and play it in blitz and online. AT the same time you should read about Ideas and plans, Look at games from top players 2600+ and also older games from before the 21th century. Cause in top games now days everyone knows about the typical sacrifices and piece placements, and will stop it from happening. So a bit older games is usually to prefer.
Step 4 Variations (Not necessary at lower levels)
When I say that it is not necessary, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t learn the variations. I just say that if your goal is to have fun with chess and not use to much time, this step is the least important one. But if you want to be serious, now is the time to open a book with clear variations and lots of games. Cause now you have to know all the difference between all your opponent’s replies.
And remember if your opponent do something you don’t know, you know the plans and ideas to play it without any knowledge beforehand.
