Best way to learn openings. . suggestions please

Thanks for the great advice :)

Basically I don't go for a specific opening, although I am beginning to recognize patterns in an opponents moves (sicilian dragon, accelerated dragon, ruy lopez, kings indian etc). I don't know exact responses so I look at the board and counter threats all the while trying to open with principle. I am not just moving pieces from remembering how a ruy lopez or Scotch game starts etc. Sometimes it works fine and I can hold my own until we get past the first 10 - 15 moves, sometimes I fall for a trap. One thing I can say is that obviously I am learning as can recognize some of the patterns, as I said before. I also look see if there are any threats, opportunities for tactics etc. I might blunder by not taking more time to think, but I am trying to discipline myself and am making some progress. As long as I learn a bit more each time and make less blunders then I will be happy.

I'll never be a high ranked player at my age, but I am sure that I can improve to a level where I still enjoy chess and get to play players at a higher level without embarassing myself :)

One good thing is that I have plenty of time for study now that I am pretty much retired.

Playing online chess (not live), with at least 3 days per move is a great way to learn your opening of choice. I am not going to tell you what to study or not study, although I agree with others that openings are not as important as much as tactics and endgames are. 

So if you are going to study openings, you should narrow it down to just a few openings because there are so many. For example, king or queen pawn as white and a defense for each of these as black.

Reference books are helpful, although now they have probably all been converted to databases, but the gold standard is the 5 volume ECO; the short version is the popular MCO (Modern Chess Openings).

Play over the games of masters featuring the openings you have chosen. Compare the opening moves in your games to the moves masters have played. Compare your moves to the opening references you have available. Make notes! Have fun!

Tactics training is the only way to avoid these traps, unless you can memorize thousands of variations.

I recommend playing through a large number of whole games.

First, Read Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals or A Primer of Chess. These cover endings, tactics, middlegame planning, and openings, and include whole games.

Then, read Chernev, Logical Chess: Move by Move; or Chernev, The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played; or Max Euwe, The Development of Chess Style; or Richard Reti, Masters of the Chess Board.

If a player's games strikes your fancy, go through as many of this players games as you can as fast as you can. You will absorb opening ideas, middlegame plans, and endings. Your play will improve.

Thanks for all your great advice, I'll certainly be making use of it :)

For someone seeking help with choosing openings, I usually bring up Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014).

http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html

I believe that it is possible to see a fair portion of the beginning of Tamburro's book by going to the Mongoose Press site. Another possibility is Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006).

"If you find an opening here that appeals to you and you wish to find out more about it, the next step would be to obtain an introductory text devoted entirely to that subject." - GM John Emms in his 2006 introduction to basic opening principles, Discovering Chess Openings

"Throughout the book Emms uses excellently chosen examples to expand the readers understanding of both openings and chess in general. Thus equipped the student can carry this knowledge forward to study individual openings and build an opening repertoire. ... For beginning players, this book will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board." - FM Carsten Hansen, reviewing the 2006 Emms book

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

Other possibly helpful books:

Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf

Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)

https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/

Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1949)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf

Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)

https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/

A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf

www.365chess.com    Opening Explorer.

Just played a live game and lost miserably. I tried the Ruy Lopez and fell flat on my face LOL. Actually blundered my queen after completely becoming single minded when I knew that the chance to trap the king had gone and that I should have sat back and thought of another direction to take.

As soon as the queen had gone I became flustered and made a whole list of bad decisions, one after the other. I believe I should have resigned at the point of the blunder but, as ever, I'm pretty loathe to give up even when the signs were all there LOL.

This is a good illustration of opening study vs tactics; many openings have tactics built into them, so in a way it is impossible to study some openings without also studying tactics at the same time...as you know, in the Ruy, 3.Bb5 is an attempt to remove one of the defenders of the e5 pawn (the f6 knight.) This is a tactic! 

Many players blame their losses on the opening, when in fact the opening is never to blame; its the tactic in the opening, or a blunder. My guess is, if a piece is left hanging, the last move is not in any opening lines  

Yeh, definitely a blunder and we had entered the middle game. My version of the Ruy wasn't one you would probably recognize LOL

This has been my method the last 2 years, just my experiences.

I used to study openings to a degree when I was younger, like playing black in a French Winawer, or a Mar del Plata death variation of the KID, but eventually, reading through all the books and memorizing, but at this point, I would completely forget whatever I studied from books etc., I just don't have the memory, nor did the games really appear enough for it to be useful.  The last few years I just note when I get to a position that is new to me and devote time to that position alone, no more, no less, this is the only position I'll study. I'll look at some GM games from it, try some lines against an engine like Stockfish or Houdini and try to then figure out how I would play that position again if it ever comes up again.

I've found that by doing this, I wasn't spending as much time learning openings, just the minimal I need to get by and have at least a some understanding of the position.  Knowing the stupid traps etc. :) or seeing how the engine likes to continue.

The other thing I've done was adopt a universal system of sorts, and then slowly migrate it to something less systemy..i.e. I picked up this thing called the King's Indian Attack back in the late 90's, it's served as a nice 'backup plan' in lines I have not yet added to my repertoire.  Recently, I've adopted an 'advance only' repertoire as White, which has many overlaps, so advance French, advance Caro Kan, Alapin Sicilian, and e5 Alekhine's.  Many times they transpose to each other, sometimes with a move to boot!

Try https://www.chessable.com its a really good website to help you learn openings that encourages you to come back every day, all the repotoires(openings) are sound and playable at any level

Thanks to everyone who has given advice since I resurrected this old thread. The suggestions have been great and I'll certainly start using them :)

If anyone wants a live game or online (days per move) game, I'm always up for being taught a lesson LOL

"... In games between novice chess players, color is not the most important factor, but acquired knowledge is crucial. Without the basics of opening play it is easy to fail, and that's why openings must be learned. ..." - Journey to the Chess Kingdom by Yuri Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin

In a 2006 GM John Nunn book, in connection with opening study, it is stated that, if a "book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first".

"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

In one of his books about an opening, GM Nigel Davies wrote (2005), "The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line."

cadaha, I looked at a few of your games, and I agree with SonofaBishop, openings are not what is causing you to lose games.

However since you are asking about openings, let's talk about openings. At your level most players only stay in the book for 3 to 5 moves, many play non-book openings. The purpose of an opening is to get you to a position that you understand better than your opponent. Because lower level players leave the book so early it is important to pick openings that at defined in two or 3 moves. Another key is to pick openings that have a few common responses. The Bishop's Game, and the French Defense are the ones I started with. For the Bishop's the most common book response will be the Berlin Defense. For the French it will be the exchange or the advance.

I believe the question you are really asking is how can I improve my game? Here is what I am doing: Play a 30 minute game, with the chess.com app. After the game a menu will pop up. Press the analysis button. Go over the analysis until you understand the mistakes you made, do worry about things like you misssed a mate in 7 etc.

Play through Masters Games that were played before 1860. Try to understand each move, you can also try to predict moves for one side or the other.

Another key to improve is to stop hanging pieces. The book Chess Mase has helped me a lot with this. Also solving tatical puzzles of mate in one and then mate in two. It is best to do this without making the first move, I use a book of puzzles so I am forced to visualize the complete solution.

Thank you :) Great suggestions which I will adopt.

At the moment,daily, I am doing tactics; watching videos for a couple of openings I have come across (had to try and defend against); learning one opening each for white and black and trying to get to 10 moves for each; practicing end games and looking at old games (I like the Paul Morphy ones as they are old and it is said his opponents were around 1200 - 1400 by today's standards).

Sometimes I feel I have access to too much information and end up doing what I did when I first started learning guitar (jumping around a lot). Once I set myself a practice routine with the guitar I found that I moved forward in leaps and bounds until I managed reach a standard where I could play a few live gigs (an unbelievable buzz :) )

chessable.com. 

I totally agree, that's a great position indeed.

While I agree that investing heavily in the opening at the expense of midgame and endgame cannot be good for anybody,let alone for  beginners, I would not go so far as to say openings don't matter.Although I am aware there are strong practical players who "don't know openings",a closer examination will show that this is only half true.Yes,technically they don't know names of openings, let alone concrete variations,however they are familiar with elements of play that appear strictly in the opening, even if they don't know the names of these elements(e.g. open vs semi open vs closed games,fianchettoed bishops,the intrinsic weakness of f7/f2 ,know how to avoid opening traps,understand that d4/c4/Nf3 type of openings  mostly lead to a different type of play than e4 openings-pawn play vs piece play-,etc.)Therefore,everytime I hear a player proudly declaring that they have reached a good practical level of strength without ever having studied the opening I am a little skeptical.