Opening Recommendations

Hi all, just discovered these forums and they're great! I am in the business of learning ~3 openings for both black and white.

So far I have 

White: Queen's Gambit and  English

Black: French. 

I'd really appreciate it if you could recommend some black and white openings. My rating is ~ 1140. 

Thanks. 

Hi! Since your rating is ~1140, I would not recommend to study any openings deeply. You only need to know the basic moves of the openings and what the main plan/goal of that opening is. 

I am rated ~1350 and I need to learn a lot about the other stages of the game. It is the study of a good thought process, positional play and also some tactical abilities that lead you to success - and eventually really understanding the opening.

Therefore, I recommend to study the same things that I am doing:

- Solve tactical puzzles here at chess.com or http://chess.emrald.net/index.php. I recommend doing this at least 15-30 minutes a day.

- Play many slow games, preferably over the board. You will not be able to apply the tips given if  you don't play slow games and take your time.

- Read the following books and apply the given advices to your slow practicing games:

1. The Improving Chess Thinker by Heisman (read everything). This is a really good book on the errors made by players in the thought process. 

2. The Amateur's Mind by Silman. 

3. Silman's Complete Endgame Course

hello, i am exactly 1423 fide. what i do is study traps or things to watch out for. i study the opening depply but if there is a point which i do not know, i play a natural move with thinking.

i change the opening against people i have played before. you should have at least three openings for each side.

Since you like the Queens gambit and french you should look into playing the QGD tarrasch variation against 1.d4 and 1.c4. It uses the same e6-d5-c5 setup as the french, which is also what you use if you play e3 variations in the quens gambit as white, so it would be very consistent.

No player below 1200 should even consider learning any opening theory, let alone 6 openings!! This is genuine advice, not a pointless dig. Just follow opening principles for at least your next 1000 games.

Hi all. Thanks so much for the many replies. I like to learn openings at this level because so far e4.e5 has gotten boring. i used to play alot about 5 years ago and that's when I learned the Queen's Gambit (I was ~1300 at this point) I loved playing it and now that my interest in chess has been peaqued again I've decided to learn more openings to help. Thanks agian everyone!

Maybe I didn't make this clear. Not only is learning openings boring and time consuming but it will negetively affect your play. I swear that the average chess player is a complete moron...

There's nothing wrong with an under 1200 learning the basics of the openings, along with tactical and positional considerations. Indeed, the opening itself can't be looked at in a vaccuum without those considerations. When looking at an opening, ask yourself with each move by you and your opponent, what squares are being attacked, what squares are being defended, and what squares are being weakened.

Learning the proper ideas behind openings is a good thing - the issue arises when a player spends an unbalanced time learning, for example, a variation of the Ruy 32 moves in (which you will practically never get to). Generally, looking 8-12 moves in is good enough to get an idea of what's going on.

Take a look at thechesswebsite.com - it has some very novice friendly videos that show the basic ideas and some of the things to watch out for in a number of openings. The QG as white and French as black are excellent choices. I would avoid the English as it is extremely tricky with transpositions to other openings. You just need to decide on a defense as black to 1.d4.

Nah but learning different pawn structures and different builds of development is nice, also you should like your openings, makes chess much more fun :). True openings isn't everything on 1200 level (I'm there now as well) but some basic knowledge is good about them.

If your are playing 1.c4 with white, you may consider the Sicilian with black. They often share many similarities, especially in the sidelines. Knowing one can help you know the other.

(But don't just follow the same moves for both blindly - that can be diasterous)