Openings for OTB Tournaments.

hi! I am advancing into a higher category at my weekly swisses. Like before I was at U900 now I’m at U1400. I would like to know from y’all what openings I should use. I see lots of openings I have never seen otb such as Sicilian and English openings. please let me know.

stinky socks gambit

wow

Classic openings. You are losing because of tactical failures, not because you choose the wrong openings.

Openings like the sicilian, french, caro-kann, etc. used to confuse me too and I kept getting beat by them. Stick with e4 and learn a way/plan to counter each of them in the first few moves to give yourself a fighting chance. Against the sicilian, look into the rossolimo or the moscow variations, against the french, try the tarrasch, against the caro kann, try the 2 knights.

I like the d-pawn opening. Colle System is interesting.

opening are like candy to many to choose from.

You have to find openings with positions that fits your style and you enjoy playing. I used to love playing King's Gambit and the Danish Gambit but after I got stronger I switched to the Queen's Gambit and the Ruy Lopez. And I absolutely love playing either side of the Sicilian because it's a fighting opening with chances for both sides.

What if you choose the Alien Gambit?

If an opening is itself a tactical failure, then choosing that opening loses because of tactical failures.

1st of all, no one knows your style, tastes, and temperament better than you. If you don't know what those are, you can discover them by analyzing your games. Whether it's a win or loss were you able to at any time during the game, to make 6-10 moves without a mistake or blunder? (?) or (??) , not (?!)!?! Online evaluations don't see anything that is interesting, unclear, or with compensation for the material!!! You should not need to know an opening to go 6-10 move in an OTB tournament game without a mistake or a blunder. If you are good here...

Go to the classical line of each opening until it says there are no games with that position. Now go back 1 move at a time and ask yourself if you could get that position every time, which side would you want to play and why. After you have done this for 7-10 openings and analyzed at least 15-20 of your own serious games with the same question in mind, you should have a good idea of at least 1 opening you want to start studying for each color.

Under 1400 means Kings gambits and Queens gambits. My recommendation is for the King's Gambit play the declined 2...Bc5 and for the Queens Gambit, play the accepted. Your opponents will have invested so much time studying the accepted for the KG and the declined for the QG, that you have a 75% chance of hitting a line they can't remember or that they have never studied at all.

Last, your evaluation of any opening is not complete until you have watched 10-15 whole Grandmaster games in the variation you believe you are interested in!

If this helps, let me know,

Coach Mike C

I am confused. Your post title implies you're looking for opening suggestions to play, as does your post. But you also say you see lots of new openings. Are you looking for ways to play against the sicilian or english specifically? Or are you just asking people for random opening suggestions?

I agree.

I think we are starting with a very high bar. OP's highest online rating is 600 in bullet and says he recently just got out of U900, so I would assume him to be in the 900s. It's a bit of a stretch to expect them to even know what you mean by "classical line" or how to even navigate an opening explorer (well the explorer was not even mentioned so I am not sure if OP knows this is what you mean).

But if he did, I think this is overkill. You just stated that you don't need to know an opening well to play good opening moves, and now it seems like you're telling him to do some serious studying in the opening. (7-10 openings to do this with, you said).

It's much more conducive for good opening play to understand some general ideas of the opening, and see how those types of thinking may lead to good (and often theoretical) moves.

For example,

I think it would be best for OP, if he is interested in figuring the ideas of the sicilian or english, that he watch a gothamchess video about those. I think levy does a good job in this regard.

Honestly I don't really see this from my time volunteering for scholastic chess from 2021 to 2023. Mostly it is an amalgamation of badly played d4 openings or london systems, or symmetrical italian/lopez games.

While I do agree that in general, declining those types of theoretical battles is good, if you're learning to navigate openings properly without much theory, you should first go into what your logic tells you to. And add exceptions later. And you do this testing by playing online.

Anyways, I think you made a great post, I hope you don't take this as me trying to negate anything you said. I just feel that in the context of OP specifically some of what you said doesn't apply to him.

i think those r just examples

I love the Danish as white, it provides a super dynamic game as long as the time control is under about an hour.

Yes. I do use this opening and I also do play U1400 at my local swisses. Unfortunately, the issue is after 1000 not many people accept the danish, as they know what's coming after.

Yes, I never accept the Danish. I take the first 2 pawns and then I develop my pieces. It really frustrates Danish gambit players. 😂😂

I play under1500 USCF and if I am white and play 1.e4, about 35-40% of the time the sicilian is played

for me its like 75%