I have never studied openings. I play Queen's gambit as white and Sicilian mostly as black. I have played them many times and I use opening explorer in Daily games to get an idea of popular moves and responses.

However, I feel that I want to delve deeper into openings. I want to figure out my openings with a deeper understanding of the pawn structures, plans, and common tactics.

How do I do this...I just bought MCO (modern chess openings) book. It is just zillions of moves and tables of responses. It doesn't read like a lesson, its just cryptic information. I don't even know how to approach using that book because its not my intention to read about every opening and every response...I just want to see the why and how behind the moves in openings I want to play, so that I can play the openings better.

Choose books that focus on your chosen opening rather than an encyclopedia that covers everything. Also you can get a chess database and download game collections of openings you are looking into.

"... For new players, I cannot recommend books that use [an encyclopedic] type of presentation [of opening theory], because the explanatory prose that elaborates typical plans and ideas is usually absent, thus leaving the student without any clear idea why certain moves are played or even preferred over other apparently equivalent moves. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)

"... For inexperienced players, I think the model that bases opening discussions on more or less complete games that are fully annotated, though with a main focus on the opening and early middlegame, is the ideal. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)

First Steps: Queen's Gambit

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7652.pdf

Starting Out: The Sicilian, 2nd Edition

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627122350/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen123.pdf

I actually recommend a book on middle game play called "Reassess Your Chess" by Jeremy Silman.

Although it's focused on middle game play, it actually does a really good job with opening ideas due to the fact that the ideas he teaches for middle game play  can be used to understand opening moves.

Now the book isn't going to teach you the ideas of any particular opening.  But for the general middle game concepts, you can apply those to the opening phase of the game.

There's a 75-year-old book by Fine called "The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings".

You might feel that a book that old has nothing to teach you... in the same way that a play by Shakespeare (~420 years old) or a painting by Leonardo da Vinci (~520 years old) has nothing to teach you.

Off Topic: How to learn from Leonardo. http://www.basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2016/6/5/how-to-fight-against-conventional-wisdom.html

I had no clue what to play in the opening and how to handle the middlegames that follow. For White, I watched a video series by GM Simon Williams on the London system and now it's my go-to as White.

As Black, I purchased two books called How To Play Against 1.e4 and How To Play Against 1.d4. Those books recommend the French Defense and the Czech Benoni, respectively. Those books choose lines that are easy to remember, understand, and play. They have greatly improved my play.

I like Paul van der Sterren's Fundamental Chess Openings. Very thoughtful assessments of all the main openings.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626180930/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf
https://www.silmanjamespress.com/shop/chess/how-to-reassess-your-chess-4th-edition/

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626173432/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen128.pdf

http://www.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/FCO-Fundamental-Chess-Openings-76p3561.htm

http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/FCO_Fundamental_Chess_Openings.pdf

"... Ideas Behind the Chess Openings ... cannot be recommended to the modern student seeking to improve his or her understanding of opening theory."

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708112658/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review315.pdf

About half a century ago, I think the Fine book was considered to be nearly essential reading, but now, I fear that its information is seriously out-of-date. Also, I do not think it has much in the way of sample games.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626174056/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen120.pdf

@chessguitar - 

There are several books that deal specifically with your concerns here.....i.e., fundamental principles of opening play....

note particularly the first three books in the following list...and especially - Discovering Chess Openings by John Emms...

Good Chess Openings Books For Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-openings-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

there is also some good stuff here relevant to learning how to play the opening...

Chess Openings Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/openings-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

other stuff to peruse and discover...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Thank you.

Seems to me you might benefit from books that describe in detail (move-for-move) great games. At lest 2 such books come to mind: 1. Winning Chess Brilliancies by GM Yasser Seirawan and 2. Logical Chess Move by Move Every Move Explained by Irving Chernev. This book was originally published in the late 1950's and is considered a classic for game study. It has been updated to include Algebraic notation.

I don't know if all of the openings you are most interested in are in these books; however, I suspect many would be. Again, the authors describe the thinking and theory behind every move! They helped me greatly. These books can be used by beginners, however, I think you'll get more from them if you have some experience with the game. Good luck.

http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm

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

Three things to do.

1) online play

2) analyze after each game. Don’t use chess.com’s analysis. It doesn’t show alternative moves and there strengths.  Instead, copy the moves and analyze at www,chespractice.com

3) Practice at www.chesspractice.com. Especially practice your openings over and over. Pick one opening and master it by these three steps

????

Chessmaster 5000 had games that were talked through with alternate moves and why they would or wouldn't work Josh waitzkins is excellent with his explanations and the games are discuss by him.

Will you stfu seriously? All you ever do is copy and paste your spam everywhere. I've never once seen you actually stop and type up a human reply. I'm willing to bet that you have some share in the books you're selling and you're trying to just make yourself rich.

Either type a human reply or don't post on these forums at all.

You can't understand the opening if you don't understand the middlegame that arises from it. Get a book like Soltis' Pawn Structure Chess and maybe a book like Stean's Simple Chess.

After you've read them then use a free resource like chessgames.com to get 100 games from the opening you want to understand. 50 games from around 1950-1980 and 50 modern games.

Play over them and take notes like what area of the board the players chose to play on (center queenside or kingside). What were the main pawn breaks and common piece placements? Did they seek play mainly through pawns or pieces? What was the endgame (if there was one) or what kind of mating attack was it.

Maybe the first 10 or 20 games will seem too random to be useful, but as you take notes on more games you'll start seeing recurring patterns and ideas. After 100 games you should be pretty comfortable with the opening's general ideas (and a much more dangerous player in that opening).

The when you go back to a book like MCO, you can see that when a player picks a certain variation he is choosing _____ pawn structure or idea over another pawn structure or idea, and if a variation is unknown to you, all it will take is looking at a couple of games to get the idea.