Criticism of opening "systems"

First off, I am around a 1400 here at chess.com.  I have been playing would I would say "more seriously" now for just over a year.  I played as a kid, but had no clue other than how to move the pieces, the objective, and basic tactics like how a rook can cut off the board...  I have gravitated towards the KIA as white, and I liked how it could give me some flexibility with the opening moves, and gave me kind of a roadmap.  I think I understand basics of opening principles in general...

So, I also realize this topic has been discussed a lot... But what is the criticism of using opening "systems" like KIA and Colle (which I don't know, incidentally)... particularly for a player of my current skill level...  Am I limiting my ability to learn by using this type of system?

It limits your ability to stretch to learn new things. It really is a waste of time to adopt one system at such an early stage of chess development/understanding.

There is nothing wrong with learning an opening system and dominating

your opponents for the rest of your chess career.

You only dominate those who are worse than you. Relying on one gimmick limits general understanding and the ability to deal with a variety of types of positions.

Dr, so is the obvious alternative to play multiple openings as white?  One game, play e4, one game play d4, one game play the English, one game play Nf3?, etc. 

Here is what I don't understand...  Why is KIA a "gimmick".  Fischer and others have used it...  Is KIA "refuted" as an opening?

At your level play what youre comfotable with, but growth will be harder as it gets hard leaviing your "comfort zone"

IMO the KIA is fine, the Colle not so much except for the fact that it requires very little opening knowledge. 

Just remember that as you improve youre going to need to learn, and understand some basic opening knowledge of main stream openings.

And probably the most important aspect in determining hat openings you should play is going to be based on what type of player you are. 

Tactical players prefer open positions

Positional players prefer closed to semi closed positions

Missing the point entirely, the advice is to a person of limited skills who has adopted a particular system that allows easy and relatively unopposed development for the first 5-10 moves. Until someone develops a good skill set (which is revealed by an increasing rating) playing a number of opening moves is not a bad idea. He may find that he likes to play d4 or e4 or the Reti or whatever, something he would never discover playing the same old same old every game.

Thanks, UGO...  Using my often criticized "linear thinking", I would interpret this to mean learn how to play e4 and d4 also..?  According to the game opening database, the three most prevalent first moves are #1. e4, #2, d4, and #3 Nf3.  So, if my most common current first as white is Nf3, perhaps I need to move out of my comfort zone and try the other two?

This kind of complaint comes up whenever someone with a pet line is challenged. Fischer may have used it occasionally, but he didn't play it a lot. It was more of a diversion against second-raters and people he didn't need to reveal his opening preparation to for no good reason. The KIA isn't refuted and you can play it all you want. It just avoids lots of chess that you won't become familiar with. If that's OK with you then go ahead.

Go home. Learn to play KIA/D absolutely as well as you can and if one day you

need to learn another opening  you will know...

What type of player are you? 

Do you prefer wide open gameswith alot of tactics?  Then play open games with e4 such as the Ruy Lopez

Do you prefer slow positional games?  Then play openings like the Englisch, French, Caro Kann, etc.

Find your comfort zone and youll find openings you enjoy playing.  But as you improve youll need to at the very least become somewhat familiar with other openings, as some games will simply transpose to positions youre not going to be comfortable with. 

Agreed on the KID, as far as the KIA i would suggest studying the Englisch also to help with the pawn structrue aspect.

This is helpful.  So your suggestion would be to use e4 and d4 openings and learn their intricacies first?

I started out playing the KIA decades ago. Instead of replacing it with an opening repertoire GMs use, I rather learned when to avoid the setup and rather transpose into something else. E.g. look at this:

The key to improvement while sticking to the KIA is to not automatically play the same setup regardless what the opponent throws at you, but to become more and more flexible over time, transposing into other openings where it's mandatory. I guess that applies to other opening "systems" too.

Of course, there aren't too many of those around...

I don't have any experience with the KIA but even if you can play the first half dozen moves by rote, Black isn't going to play the same 6 moves every time so maybe sometimes its ok sometimes not so good depending on Black's setup? I'm not a very good player so the idea of an opening 'safety net' sounds great in theory but to be honest these ideas of playing the Colle, Stonewall or any other 'automatic' development system must be boring as hell to play if you reach the same positions over and over again. Especially as the Colle and Stonewall reduces to equality fairly quickly if Black knows what they are doing, the KIA may be different, given the various setups Black can go for...

When i started. It was with the "king pawn" and "queen pawn" openings and then i had to learn the most common openings for tournaments and so on. Having a good over all understanding of openings and the positions that come from them will help your chess greatly. You don't need to go into huge depth with them (but understand the purpose of the opening and why the moves were played) until you have positions from openings you find are naturally easy to play and feel comfortable with your playing style. Once you have a good understanding of your personal preferences you can then start to specialise the openings and study some in greater depth.

At your level you need to develop a good all round understanding of every aspect of chess. That's just my opinion anyway.

To keep this as simple as possible, remeber this one thing.  The purpose of the opening is to get to a playable middlegame.

I would like to tell you, that memorizing openings is no good unless you understand the reason or plan behind the opening and generally why the moves were made. No matter what opening it is. Blind obedience to openings without taking into account the position and what your opponent plays is also going to get you beaten.

So learn some variety, but stick with more classical/popular lines, since they have the most respect from top players for a reason. Strange openings that are not common, aka; novelty openings, will get you into more trouble then its worth more often then not.