Black repertoire advice

I tried a few openings before settling fo the Pirc. I havr a friend who is FM that gave me the advice to really dig deep into one opening and master it before looking at the next. To only master 6-7 moves plus variations in different openings don't get you very far.

I'm in the same boat.

I tend to play the Scandinavian as black, many people tend to stop and think when you meet their 1.e4 with 1.d5, makes them uncomfortable.

Well I have Levy Rossmans e4 and d4 openings courses which I'm working on those. Am I looking at openings for white as too different from defenses as black? Bc the openings courses i have only does e4 d4 as white, so I figured a deep course on a couple defenses as black. The pirc eh? I haven't checked into that one. I'll take a look thx

isn't learning the main line and variations all there is with openings? 10 main line moves plus the 6 to 10 variations....? is there more to learning an opening than that bc that's a lot?

I'm learning the French Defense. Simon Williams has a great course on it.

I misspelled, I meant 6 moves. Thereabouts, both players have finished their opening stance.

By variations I mean maybe two or three of the most commonly played. But the gamechanging moves happens after that. Therefore, studying the moves 7-10 in a specific opening is more fruitful.

Ah yes I see and agree. with levy's $40 courses (gothamchess.com) I have everything I need to understand different e4 d4 themes and principles. And I have been through the ginger GMs french and kings Indian. I did really enjoy the french but It seemed to have alot of moves that never get played against me at my level (maybe everyone thinks this but I have done all the chess.com lessons plus some of the mastery lessons, and all the youtube stuff so I feel my rating is a bit low). I study 4x as much as I play. I may play 3 4 games a day tops. 10 to 30 puzzles.

While you're inexperienced, you shouldn't be looking at openings like the King's Indian. The standard advice is that you should open 1.e4 with White, and meet 1.e4 with 1...e5 (aiming to defend a Ruy Lopez or Italian Game most of the time) and 1.d4 with 1...d5 (aiming for a Queen's Gambit Declined). That way you will get experience of tactical open positions and some of the basic strategic themes of chess.

Forget about learning openings before 1500 lvl at least.

Learn opening principles instead! Then you'll be able to play any opening on decent enough level.

Openings are the foundation of your game, and a good opening leads to a good middle game which leads to a good end game...

But having good foundations doesn't really matter if you try to build your house by sticking it together with bubble gum and bandaids. 

My advice is to take time to analyze your games and let the computer tell you why the moves you are making are bad and figure out what is better. You would probably be better off there than trying to memorize tricky chess openings. 

don't believe such a comment. if learning an opening makes you think chess is interesting then just learn. You may not improve fast, but opening ideas will broaden your horizon.

Thanks for all the advice. I would say I do understand the difference between opening memorization and the the fundamental ideas behind each move. I'm not saying I understand it all but I understand to focus on the themes and motifs vs memorizing moves. I do the hair pulling drills on the app and 15 to 30 puzzles a day for tactics. all the popular streamers. Levy is my guy tho. If you had to say one method or focus to get up to 1200 for example what would it be? Besides analysis I always go through that and key moments are awesome bc you get to a mistake or blunder and you get to try and find the correct move before it tells you (sorry idk if all these features are available to free accounts?) Remember I've completed more chess.com video lessons than games played (rapid)? thx

@futureGMcasper thanks for that! as simple as c6 is I cant wait to test it thanks

FMbrown60. Yes I understood it was a 5..c6 and correct me if I'm wrong but I have been working on the caro a bit so it goes right along with that

Caro has some similar idea to Scandi and French

You can play something like this

Pros: you can wait for Nf3, c5 push is also played in the french defense, this variation is rare and has lower theory.

Cons: you have to deal with Bb5+ and your kingside develops really slowly. 

If the goal is to improve, on that level, learning openings is a bad way to do it. Learn a few moves and opening principles. Focusing on learning some opening lines is not effective on that level because people will play sidelines. What do I mean by this? I don't mean that it is not ok to check out engine evaluations and correct some mistake you've played in the opening, but apart from that passive learning from your mistakes, you should predominantly focus on other things like tactics, basic endgames, opening principles, and generally learning about the game.


Edit: I am looking at your defeats... If you wish to improve, 10 minute games will not do. It is obviously too fast. It is much better to play less amount of longer games then multiple shorter games per day.

You are just making too many 1 move mistakes and allowing simple tactics. Until you are able to keep blunders in check, thinking about openings is like trying to apply band aid on a slight cut while having a hole in your chest. 

That being said, if you are really that into openings and improvement is not too important, than sure, you should do what you enjoy.

When you are regularly hanging your knight or worse, openings are the least of your worries. 

He actually plays a lot better in the opening than his peers. Even if that is not the case, he would still only need opening principles at even intermediate level. For instance, take me. With opening principles and by correcting certain mistakes in the way I described, in majority of my games even when I lose, I have a good position out of the opening (ok, I sometimes blunder out of the opening but everyone does that from time to time). This is sometimes the case even against stronger people than my level. So why do I lose those games?

Because in those games I was worse in either recognizing tactics or building up a plan. So in my case I should most likely focus my studies on the middlegame - tactics and strategy. In his case, he should play longer games to lessen the amount of blunders that changes the evaluation from + 2 to -5. Just by doing that he would get from 700 rating to 1 100 at least.

He may study openings if that makes him happy, sure. But it will not improve his current game on a substantial level, because he lacks fundamentals. 

Openings can get someone strong a more comfortable game. But when two weaker players (I include myself as well) meet, tactics and better middlegame understanding will decide the game in majority of cases. Endgames are more important as well. It is much more useful to know if simplifying to the endgame is better for you or your opponent than the difference between 6. Be3 and 6.Bg5 in Najdorf Sicilian.

But as I've said, passive studying without memorizing too much is fine. You play a game, then you look if you've made some bad move in the opening and see what is better than that. 

On some higher level you can think about looking masters games in the opening you play. That still is not actively memorizing anything. It actually helps to understand plans in the middlegame but it has a secondary effect of getting better in the opening of your choosing.

By doing all of that, you will not memorize anything but opening play will get better naturally.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I may have mentioned that I've completed 207 of chess.com's video lessons. I know a lot of people probably feel this way but I can't seem to get into the 800, 900 level which, maybe not based on my games because I sort of got all over the place with study. So I have a lot going for me that maybe other players at my level don't, but as has been mentioned, you look at my games and see 1 move blunders and you are right 15/10 or 30 min is the time control where I play the best. Mostly 30. I can find the hanging pieces and formulate a plan if given the time to think. My point is I feel stuck with 30 min games & the pressure of wanting to win such a time investment. I have been watching Gotham's "Guess my subs rating vids" and I'm shocked at the moves played (as shocked as Levy). I know my game pretty well (pros and cons) and I just don't understand how players 500 to 700 points above me are playing some really terrible blunders. Is the answer to seek out higher rated opponents to see if I can fight at that level?