How to Study Openings Otb?

I genuinely have never studied chess or an opening in my life, and I plan on playing otb chess with USCF. All my opening knowledge comes from vibe constructing the Queen's Pawn opening from a million bullet games, and I literally play the same thing as black down a tempo.

I genuinely have never studied chess or an opening in my life, and I plan on playing otb chess with USCF. All my opening knowledge comes from vibe constructing the Queen's Pawn opening from a million bullet games, and I literally play the same thing as black down a tempo.

I just don't know where to start, do I just stare at an engine, buy a course, read a book, or something else? My opening theory is completely cooked in long games, and the goal is to get to 2200 USCF 🤠

Stare at an engine is not recommended. Buy a course or read a book could work, but which course or which book? How much money do you have?

1. Pick a player, could be any player, but you want one with a biography having 50 or 100 annotated games. Buy the book.
2. Play through all the games, all the way through to resigns. Take a note of the player's opening repertoire. These are your openings to start. The annotations will answer some of your questions about the openings. If you have more questions, do some research online or with an engine.
3. Start playing these openings in your games. Note any problems you have, and research some more. All openings, even the best ones, have problems. It's how much independent work you do on the problem positions that determines whether you are strong in the openings.
4. Search out more games and articles on your openings to expand your knowledge.

This is just where to start. Once you have some experience studying openings, you will want to have a more thought-out repertoire, and get some courses/books that feature just those, but at the moment that would be too much. Also a coach could be helpful, but that is real money and commitment. I neither recommend for or against. Most strong players have had a coach, but some didn't.

Finally, for OTB prep, you might want to reconsider playing bullet online. Search for "best time control chessmood" to read a GM opinion.

Contrary to the previous comment, randomly picking a player and trying to mimic the repertoire is a horrible approach.

Before you even knew what an opening was, what opening have you been playing? For me, in 1995, it was the French. I was playing the French before I even heard of the French Defense. It is what came to me naturally. I played it for 29 years before making it my secondary defense and now playing the Petroff.

But the point is you need to see what came to you naturally first and then get books on what you play as White and as Black against e4 and d4.

When you study openings, you don't just mimic and memorize. You take your time. Understand each move. If the move you thought was right, try to figure out why it is inferior. Sometimes you might get to move 8 and only then realize why the author's 4th move is better than yours. Once you get some understanding, look for players that play the same openings as you and study their games.

For example, here are some players that play what I play:

White - Julian Hodgson

Black - Smyslov, Karpov, Caruana, Short, Botvinnik, Williams, Bhat, Uhlmann, Korchnoi

(Trompowsky/Levitsky as White, Petroff, French, Stonewall Dutch, Classical Dutch as Black)

I would suggest watching videos about chess openings on YouTube. GothamChess and Chess Vibes have amazing videos about openings. There's also many other videos/channels.

It's funny I said "any player" and this was interpreted in the worst possible way: "randomly". Instead, I meant "you pick the player". Maybe they play openings you are interested in, maybe you admire their style, or whatever. I give chess players the benefit of the doubt, they are intelligent and can come up with their own criteria for picking a player. It's just the beginning of the road for someone who has never studied openings, not the best ultimate way.

As ever, @Thrillerfan (at #3) offers really sound advice. I'd not contradict a word but have some thoughts to add. Largely a different perspective saying similar categories of thing.

@deutsia having seen your grades it is one heck of an achievement to have got where you've got as what might be described as a "feral" chess intellect, getting there from Native Talent Alone without much/any study. Kudos. But sooner or later a lack of study becomes a drag factor - as one's grade rises more and more of the opponents one faces will know exactly what they are doing in the openings they have studied. Both in terms of understanding the position types and in terms of having memorised key tactical lines they will be "standing on the shoulders of giants". Memorisation is not often the best technique and certainly bad as a standalone (if one does not understand what one is memorising, one fails when the opponent deviates from what has been memorised), but memorising has a place in key complicated lines.

My own counsel would be to start out with a large anthology of the best GM games across all time (opening fashions change, sometimes without the "old" stuff having been refuted). As you play through them, reflect. Both on the plans their openings are setting up for the middlegame and on how easily you yourself can see good moves in those positions (that says what sorts of position you have a natural facility for). Chances are this will give you an outline of some specific openings to start studying deeply - a set of "leads on which to follow up". Lines and position types which excite and enthuse you.

Then it's time to look for "literature" (might actually be books, or videos, or best game collections of great players who use the opening, or streams, or a mix/all of the above) on the openings your 'feel' says you might do well with. Sometimes the "literature" will put you off because you discover there are lines which lead to position types you just can't wrap your head round and play well (as White, I struggle against the Caro-Kann variation 1. e4, c6; 2. d4, d5; 3. Nd2, dxe4; 4. Nxe4, Nd7 (Karpov's old favourite) so until/unless I improve in that area I'm playing other lines). As Black, I used to play the Modern Scandinavian 1. e4, d5; 2. exd5, Nf6 but found I struggled to find and play the best moves for Black against the objectively-not-best 3. Bb5+ line when I got out of "book learning". So now I play other stuff against 1. e4. Getting a good position is no use if you can't actually play it in practice.

I had a quick look at your game history on here. My own counsel is that one-minute Bullet; which you seem to play a lot; is not a great way to dive into the deeper strategies of one's openings - it foregrounds the "how do I bamboozle the opponent tactically?" aspect of things over the patient accumulation of strategic advantages. Playing 10+ minute games might do your grade in Rapid no good at all for a while, but might be a long-term Strategic Sacrifice to improve your overall development.

These are just generalised ideas though. At your level of play when you are (unusually) coming to insert yourself into this sort of study having already got really good (I'll likely never get a 2000+ grade again), can you afford a coach? If you can, maybe go looking for recommendations on who's good. Chances are a coach working with you can fill in the gaps with you better than self-study (it's hard to spot one's own gaps sometimes) and ease the next step-up in your chess journey - part of a coach's job is to really come to empathise with the strengths and areas for improvement of their pupil and advise accordingly.

Hope this blither is some use.