Opening advise for level 1100 to 1300

Hi All, I'm new to the site and been playing seriously for about 3 month and I'm looking for some help/opinions on openings and development if possible. I play around a 1200 level I believe but I still make critical errors particularly when there is 32 peices so I generally open with D4 or the French defence looking to sarifice my weak bishop for the Knight early, I'll also play the queen's gambit if it appears. The Kings opening I feel I struggle with as it seems very neutral and I think I win most my games by creating disbalance so to speak I tried using the Kings Indian defence set up for a while but I found I wasnt very good with it so it's either not my style or levels above me. Any generally help, openings advise, critical queen game moves would be really appreciated. Thanks Dan

I looked at two of your wins and two of your losses (games at least longer than 30 moves).

I think your opening play is pretty good. You're following the opening principles, i.e. basically developing knights and bishops off the back rank quickly and castling.

But I think your opening play can improve by challenging yourself to follow them more rigorously. For example in this game on move 7 you play Nh6 which is not developing towards the center. 

 

Maybe you were nervous about white's queen attacking f7 so you developed your knight there to defend it, but this is what I mean by challenging yourself to follow the principles more closely. There are comfort moves like Nh6 which help you feel safe, but then you have to ask yourself "is Qxf7 really a threat? and can white attack f7 again?" and if the answer is no (or in this case, the answer is 0-0 will defend f7 with your rook), then don't worry about it and develop more naturally with Nf6 instead.

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In the game below you again develop a knight to the edge with 6...Na6

This time the knight could be captured for free and white did that. This is a different problem, but it's worth mentioning that in all 4 games I looked at there were moves like this that either left a piece in danger of being taken for free, or placed a piece in danger. Being consistent about checking whether your moves are blunders is what helps people's rating more than anything else. The next game has the same thing, but you're asking about opening advice so that's all I'll say about that.

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In the game below I like your opening up to move 6 but then you start going for an attack before your development been completed.

In the end you won, and sure even some GM games will feature tactical fighting openings, but these are the exception, and your results will improve by focusing on consistently completing development before starting any big fights.

As for opening theory like a French, or Queen's Gambit (like you mention in the OP) I think it's useful to memorize about 5 or so moves deep for the main lines. So go ahead and do that, but until your opponents are playing theory this knowledge wont really help your results. What will help your results the most is consistently making sure moves are safe, and for the time being what will help your openings the most is more closely following the opening principles.

Hey Lama, thank you so much for looking at the games and comments, blunders are definitely my biggest downfall, I've lost alot of games around move 20 trying to force it

I'll definitely take the comments on board and try and improve with them

I like to talk about chess, and it's fun when I can actually help someone out while doing it, so thanks for the positive feedback, and good luck

Slightly off topic question but why do you believe you are around a 1200 player if your blitz rating is 850?

I see no problem at all with your openings, and there is no point studying such stuff as long as you miss basic tactics. 

The best thing you can study for now is a master game collection, and Morphy is the ideal start. Get Beim's book if you can.

I would suggest adopting openings where the overall plan is rather simple and almost universally applicable. It doesn't mean playing blindly but rather being economical in your effort, while also being tactically vigilant. Computers have shown us after all, that chess is a game for the opportunistic. The queen's gambit declined fits this bill rather nicely. You set up your pawn center d5, e6, you develop your kingside nf6, be7 00, and then your queenside b6 bb7 c5 and nc6 or nbd7 depending on circumstances, and then find a square for the queen, connect the rooks, bring them to the game and fight for the center in the middlegame. You can even take it further and play this setup as white, although I would go for positions where white has an isolated d-pawn because it offers more dynamic play. I don't have a universal approach vs 1 e4 though, but the open games with 1..e5 is a good start. You need to learn to at least survive if not come out on top in tactical battles, and the open games is about early tactics. There is a lot more to know here than the other two openings I have mentioned, but they will be useful to you in the long run so you shouldn't mind. One more advantage is all three openings can be your permanent repertoire if you so desire. They are all reliable. Hope this helps.

I'm very new to chess and partially speed chess. I make bad blunders about 1 in 40 moves.ie give my queen away and I don't know many openings by heart but when the game is reduced and level I can make some really smart moves imo so I'd say I have a tactically ability around 1100 and peak around 1300 but make numerous errors.

« and I don't know many openings by heart »

But you don't have to know openings by heart. Ideas matter more than moves.

Good

Good for me learn