opening advice for a relative beginner

1. Lay off the blitz/bullet.

2. Follow Opening Principles.

3. Tactics...tactics...tactics.

4. Analyze your games WITHOUT a chess engine.  

5. After your opponent makes a move, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

6. Before you make a move, ask yourself: "Are my pieces safe?"

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
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
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.
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Perhaps ConnorMonday would also want to look at Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006).
"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings] 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 (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
"There is no such thing as a 'best opening.' Each player should choose an opening that attracts him. Some players are looking for a gambit as White, others for Black gambits. Many players that are starting out (or have bad memories) want to avoid mainstream systems, others want dynamic openings, and others want calm positional pathways. It’s all about personal taste and personal need.
For example, if you feel you’re poor at tactics you can choose a quiet positional opening (trying to hide from your weakness and just play chess), or seek more dynamic openings that engender lots of tactics and sacrifices (this might lead to more losses but, over time, will improve your tactical skills and make you stronger)." - IM Jeremy Silman (January 28, 2016)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/opening-questions-and-a-dream-mate
https://www.chess.com/article/view/picking-the-correct-opening-repertoire
http://chess-teacher.com/best-chess-openings/
https://www.chess.com/blog/TigerLilov/build-your-opening-repertoire
https://www.chess.com/blog/CraiggoryC/how-to-build-an-opening-repertoire
https://www.chess.com/article/view/learning-an-opening-to-memorize-or-understand
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-perfect-opening-for-the-lazy-student
https://www.chess.com/article/view/3-ways-to-learn-new-openings
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-understand-openings
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9035.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627110453/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen169.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9029.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/has-the-king-s-indian-attack-been-forgotten
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7277.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9033.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9050.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627104938/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen159.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627022042/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen153.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... Once you identify an opening you really like and wish to learn in more depth, then should you pick up a book on a particular opening or variation. Start with ones that explain the opening variations and are not just meant for advanced players. ..." - Dan Heisman (2001)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140626180930/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf
"... To begin with, only study the main lines ... you can easily fill in the unusual lines later. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... 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)
"... If the book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... 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)
"... Everyman Chess has started a new series aimed at those who want to understand the basics of an opening, i.e., the not-yet-so-strong players. ... I imagine [there] will be a long series based on the premise of bringing the basic ideas of an opening to the reader through plenty of introductory text, game annotations, hints, plans and much more. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627055734/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen38.pdf
"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." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)

It might be easier to try something like First Steps The Queen's Gambit

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

"..., you have to make a decision: have tons of fun playing blitz (without learning much), or be serious and play with longer time controls so you can actually think.
One isn’t better than another. Having fun playing bullet is great stuff, while 3-0 and 5-0 are also ways to get your pulse pounding and blood pressure leaping off the charts. But will you become a good player? Most likely not.
Of course, you can do both (long and fast games), ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (June 9, 2016)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

Pick some opening lines for white and black, and look at them in an openings explorer, like the one here.  Try to play them over and over in whatever time control you can tolerate.  Review your games after their results.  Go back to openings explorer to find out what the right move was that you missed on move 5 of your last game. Fit some endgame lessons in there, although not totally necessary as you will learn while you burn in some of your games.   Then watch some chess games on YouTube, or wherever to unwind.  Something like this.  Do puzzles and or tactics when you just don’t feel like competing.  

And unless you are in love with it, shelve the Dutch.  Hah hah.  Or at least pick a normal defense against 1. D4.

 1) play lots of blitz (5 or 10 min)

2) tactics training

3) opening : italian

As you probably know by now, the best way to learn varies by person. All I can say for sure is if your current approach doesn't work, change it. But on to some more advice: If you're still making lots of careless blunders, I would pick an easy opening or two per side and stick with them, focusing on solid play. To that end, I would forego blitz for now, opt for 1hr+ time limits. I can't remember the guy's name, but he was a "later-in-life learner" and master. I followed his advice about sticking with e5 for white and kingside fianchetto for black because of their versatility and simplicity. His more important advice was to focus on tactics and "knight sight", drills with knights that make your head learn to calculate their movements as naturally as all the other pieces. Now, when your game improves, blitz could be of some use. . . .

. . . I found that its speed was a great way to encounter traps (scholar, fried liver, opposite fianchetto, weak rear row, the weak pawn, etc.) and learn to thwart them. I also discovered that the kingside fianchetto was the first move in modern defense opening (a somewhat complex one even without its many variations), and blitz let me practice it over and over till I knew it backwards and forwards. Since then, I've been picking up a few other openings, but my focus still isn't on that subject. ----- Anyway, my blitz game is better but still crud (I turn into a blunder machine under time pressure), but I'm getting close to 1400 on 1 day per move, and I've been studying chess less than a year . . . and NOT studying much about openings.

I highly recommend checking out two opening repertoire books by Vincent Moret.  The repertoires focus mainly on aggressive but sound lines for which understanding the typical plans and strategies are more important than memorization of myriad lines and variations....

My First Chess Opening Repertoire for White....

https://www.amazon.com/First-Chess-Opening-Repertoire-White/dp/9056916335/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515364956&sr=1-3&keywords=vincent+more

My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black...

https://www.amazon.com/First-Chess-Opening-Repertoire-Ready/dp/9056917463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515364956&sr=1-1&keywords=vincent+moret

Introduction to Moret's White repertoire...

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9033.pdf

Introduction to Moret's Black Repertoire...

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9050.pdf

See my mini review of Moret's White opening repertoire book here (search Moret)....

Good Chess Openings Books for Beginners and Beyond...

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

More on Moret's White repertoire...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41ZbPq9OpE

https://www.chessable.com/opening-book/my-first-chess-opening-repertoire/7543/

Some more opening repertoire suggestions by IM Andrew Martin and GM Nigel Davies....click on their respective names at the top of the web page.   GM Davies offers an "aggressive" repertoire choice...

http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/repert.htm

Finally, the following articles relating to choosing an opening repertoire offer food for thought...

http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa02i07.htm

A three-part set of articles by GrandPatzerChess - Parts 1 & 2 are concerned with his thoughts on building a White repertoire.  Part 3 with a Black repertoire.  I found the articles on the White repertoire to be somewhat confusing and even contradictory in places, but interesting nevertheless.  Part 3 on the Black repertoire seems to be more coherent...

http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-1.html

http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-2.html

http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-3.html

https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

All the above are good advice. The one thing I always play is the Bobby Fischer trap by taking out your Queen first. It always trips the opponent - as clearly was played by Bobby Fischer

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79179

I love to play the London System. It is the same basic setup for White almost every time, depending on what Black does. It has 2-3 main plans in it that repeat over and over again. I would highly recommend it!

hi

you are not a low rated player . you are not magnus or tal it does not mean you are a low rated player. if you think that way you will lose confidence of playing/continuing it.two openings book or thousands opening books won't help you better you can watch few  positions of great players or books and develop a strategic plan within yourself too some extent and keep playing/ surviving more.  

eg. botvinnik games / books will be helpful to understand positional chess. similarly cochrane and strungton might be considered too. etc.  reading chess classics should be your part of hobby that would help you more. enjoying games are important not memorising moves . above 1600 + players consider theory of opening below that level just you need to where you have to develop your pieces and capitalised on opponents mistakes, gaining tempo on major pieces or gaining spaces etc.  

Try www.365chess.com Opening Explorer.

Thanks for the advise everyone. I'll check out the links on Saturday. My biggest problem is that I mostly only do Hungarian (for white) and Indian (for black) because it's the fastest to get my king castled; however, I'm finding that those that counter quickly with their queens completely bottle up my opening. I'll mess around w/ some other openings on my days off of work and such. Chess is becoming a fun time killer. 

here some good books are mentioned : http://www.alexcolovic.com/category/books/ but few of them are rare to get a copy nowadays