Aggressive openings / advice on how to avoid draws?

10|0 games aren't really that helpful for what I'm asking about since they're still more about time management lol

Hey man greg said it not me.

As a 2000 who hates facing drawish openings from 1800 USCF, I would say against d4, the KIng's Indian is the best try for you because it is complicated, and against c4, either play g6 hoping to transpose to a King's INdian. or 1...e5 going to kinda a reversed Sicilian, however you might face a drawish game if white plays 2.e4 so I would say stick with g6 against Nf3,c4,and d4, and against e4, maybe the Sicillian Najdorf might be good

In any opening where your opponent is copying your moves, you should be looking for some new middlegame moves not new opening ones!?! The better you and your competition get, the longer you sometimes have to wait to realize an advantage. What used to come at the end of the opening or the beginning of the middle game now comes in the middle of the middle game or the transition to the endgame. The advantages are also smaller and require more time to convert!?

Sooner or later you or they are breaking away from grandmaster proven lines. If that's not true, you and your opponents are entering the wrong sections!? lol From the way you are explaining your challenge, you don't need to change your openings, you have to finish studying them!?!

Take your opening lines and while using books, a database, and your engine, find out the first move that is not a grandmaster move. From that move/position, watch 25 correctly played games to find out where the grandmasters are placing the rooks, what the typical pawn structures look like, and when pieces are traded. Pay special attention to the notes in the books, the ratings of the players in the database, and letting the engine study the position for a while anytime the evaluation changes by more than .35 or seems like it can't make up it's mind.

Finally, 1. c4 opening systems are very positional with subtle transpositions that require technique. Nothing short of watching whole games can prepare you for these, symmetrical, and/or copycat systems!!

Good luck

Message me if this helps.

Coach Mike C

Addressing your major points one by one:

• Good point, this is definitely something I also need to improve on. That being said, I'm not looking to just win outright in the opening.
• The way it works in my state is that the highest of the regional or national rating is used for pairing in sections. I've seen 1600-level players with a 1000 USCF rating, and I don't think playing at a lower section (which in most cases I am not eligible for) would do me any good. I will definitely try studying the various lines in the opening further though.
• Many good points here that I will keep in mind!
• This is why I made this thread to ask for other openings; I would like to be clear that it's not my intention to just completely drop the c-pawn openings and that I will be studying them more as they have still served me relatively well in the last few years. I did a quick Google search after posting this thread and it seems that some openings are indeed just more aggressive and require different playstyles. I would wager that although masters memorize very far into lines that they will never stick to one opening and will alter their choices based on their opponent; if nothing, I'm at least expanding my opening repertoire.