This article might help if you're having trouble because you rush your moves: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman10.pdf
There are a lot of helpful articles on there actually: http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice%20Nook
In my opinion you need just the basic principles of the opening, and study time elsewhere will be of more benefit at this point (lots of tactics and very basic endgame stuff).
You already know my opinion on openings:
"Chess Opening Essentials: The Complete e4" ...[and read the few pages on your 3 openings (White, Black vs e4, & Black vs d4)...] the idea of learning an opening at the 1000 chess.com level should be to play the same first few moves every game and get familiar with the positions and ideas--not to memorize variations. After that, play some Live Chess to explore what happens in real games."
You need to focus on tactics to improve. I say this over and over, but other aspects of chess tend not to matter too much when you're at the stage where you lose pieces to simple tactics (and make sure you can checkmate with queen and rook).
I almost never make blunders at correspondence time controls or G/60+, but I still make some howlers every few games at G/15 to G/45. So even for me, preparing for an upcoming G/30 tournament, tactics are the primary focus. It sucks to work an hour at a game and then blow it... and tactical errors are harder to recover from than strategic ones.
Agreed! tactics, Tactics and TACTICS!
Thank you all for the advice so far, what a wonderful group we have!
Yeah i agree with you guys, Tactics. Ive started doing them everyday, and im studying a book on them aswell and i can feel it helping me when i am playing.
Okay gang here is my second entry in my training journal. As the title says I am at a crossroads in my chess life. I am getting conflicting advice from some people I respect, some say forget openings, learn endgame strategy. The other half just the opposite, that openings will help support my tactics. I am studying my fanny off, having a blast doing it. But I would like some more input, or a different road on my training. I am still way too impatient in my games, and I get seem to get my head out of that tunnel I am in. But overall I feel I have improved since my first game on chess.com. Even though my rating doesn't reflect it, I feel I have learned some things I didn't know when I started, which to me is an improvement. Any feedback orother comments are much needed and appreciated.