opening repertoire for a 1000-rated player

Just pointing out that stockfish (and most computers, actually) prefer 1...e6 to any other move.

I asked about whether or not you have a quote of a claim that it would be a waste of time (until 1500-1800, at least and probably beyond that) to consider subjects not in the Pandolfini book. Again, as far as I can tell, you do not wish to demonstrate a Pandolfini quote making that claim. Also, as far as I can tell, you do not want to identify a specific Silman quote contradicting the GM McDonald quote.

The name of the Scotch game book was Principles of the New Chess. Again, as far as I can tell, you do not wish to demonstrate a Pandolfini quote making ta claim that it would be a waste of time (until 1500-1800, at least and probably beyond that) to consider subjects not in the Pandolfini book.

Never wrote that. If that is supposed to depict my thinking, your Ouija board is defective.

"Isn't that mostly an article about players who have not yet reached '1000 - 1100 rated level'?" - kindaspongey (~8 hours ago)

I asked about whether or not you have a quote of a claim that it would be a waste of time (until 1500-1800, at least and probably beyond that) to consider subjects not in the Pandolfini book. Again, as far as I can tell, you do not wish to demonstrate a Pandolfini quote making that claim.

Consequently, if something is believed to be unnecessary below "1000-1100 rated level" that does not imply a belief that "It's a waste of time until 1500-1800 at least, probably beyond that".

Does the GM McDonald quote mention "sub-1200"? Is the GM McDonald quote about "slight opening advantages" or is it about going "very wrong very quickly"? Does going "very wrong very quickly" make it harder to avoid tactical blunders and make it harder to get to an endgame where endgame knowledge would be helpful?

Concise Chess Openings

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Was it written that mangsterinoo's only interest was in narrowing down a repertoire to a few openings that lead to tactical and sharp positions? Did anyone write that that interest, by itself, would help mansterinoo to improve?

My thought was that these sorts of comments might be helpful:

"... 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
"... 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)
"... 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)
"... 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)
"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)

After the GloriousRising comment, it seemed to me to be desirable to consider the GM McDonald quote.

I just wanted to add to what you guys are talking about.  I am currently on chessable learning an opening I have never played before.  When I started to play the opening in an actual game, I saw the variation that I studied, but I couldn't even remember what I was supposed to do LOL, I just merely used my own opening principles knowledge and won the game without the aid of the book.  I played more games this evening earlier with a friend and he told me that opening I played with him gave him a lot of trouble.  I wasn't even operating in the spectrum of the opening repertoire taught on chessable, because he never played into any of their opening lines.  

I'm not trying to down chessable.  I'm sure some people have found it helpful, as will I when I actually play through those lines enough to remember them LOL.  I will say this though, when going through those lines in chessable, I was picking up the theory and learning from it by just watching the lines.  So I guess my chess experience helped me glean a lot more than just memorizing a bunch of lines from chessable, I learned the basic theory of that opening just by watching the lines.

Kindaspongey seems to be saying that Bobby is putting words in his mouth, that he is not suggesting opening study as a method for chess improvement, however, I do believe Kindaspongey is missing the point.  The Point is, that, Bobby believes that one should not bother learning any opening lines until they have learned the endgame and some middlegame concepts, and then, and only then, should they venture to learn the opening.   That is the part where Kindaspongey and Bobby seem to disagree.  

I do recall a time over 15 years ago where I thought I was good at chess, until I started playing online against people that knew how to play.  My chess record was laughable.  It was probably something like 5000 losses and 500 wins.  I do not remember what my rating was, but I do know that I knew hardly any opening principles and fell for the Fried Liver all the time .  Back then I wasn't half the chess player I am now, and still, I'm not even that good.  Regardless, I didn't get better by learning opening lines.  I got better by learning key principles about all the basic endgames up to and including king and pawn endgames, and some other stuff, and by playing over 50000 blitz games with opponents of varying strength, who had different styles.  Way back then, I had no idea about the opening.  All I knew, was that e4, was a good opening as white.  Which brings me to my next point, I do believe, it might be helpful, maybe, to know just a tad bit about the opening, because, having gone through being a beginner not knowing anything about the opening, as I look back, I think I could have learned a lot if I had this book, "Discovering Chess Openings."  In that book, the author doesn't teach opening lines, but, opening principles.  So you see Bobby, there are some books that this kind guy posts that can be considered good material for beginners.  

In my personal opinion though, studying some endgame concepts, can be confusing to beginners.  Like the concept of opposition.  It's an easy concept for someone like bobby, or even me, but someone who is just a beginner, as I have witnessed personally, can get confused when someone is trying to teach them the concept of opposition.  Those beginners, to them, it's just a matter of remembering that whoever's turn it is, depending on the placement of the kings, that person either doesn't have opposition, does, or can get it later, or in some cases can't no matter what he does.  But that knowledge has no meaning unless they experienced this in actual games, or have solved hundreds of king and pawn endgame problems.  So the point I am trying to make is that experience is the best teacher, though I am living proof, that you don't get much better by just playing chess alone, one must couple it with the right study plan, and a good coach.

Going off my gut, I do believe, someone just starting chess, must play as many games as possible, else nothing he is learning will help, regardless of what method you use, wither it be studying openings or endgame.  

In conclusion, I think the only book about openings that is any good for a beginner that Kindaspongey mentions all the time is Discovering Chess Openings.  Why?  Because it doesn't offer an opening repertoire.  Instead, it teaches common basic opening principles that beginner plays should all be familiar with because they occur in those type of games a lot.  I've looked at some opening books, and read about others on these forums, and have come to the conclusion that most opening books for beginners are total garbage, up to and including some of the ones that offer opening repertoires that Kindaspongey posts all the time.  So beginners be warned, and please, don't take my word for it, as long as you don't just believe what a book says just because it was written by an IM or GM.  I purchased a number of those books that Kindaspongey talks about and noticed errors in the openings they where teaching their students in almost every single game.  I quickly realized that writing a review would take too much time, and not worth it, so I stopped caring.  But, I will say this.  Be warned.  Everyone has to do what they got to do.  I wish I could give at least some proof, but I don't want to waste more time trying to find the specific games I am talking about in one particular book that Kingaspongey posted.  2Q1C tried to get better by reading a crap book by John Nunn.  I'm sure John Nunn is a good chess player, but that book is not worth the paper it's written on.  I know personally that this is the truth, but I lack the will to do the research and post this crap here.  Why?  Because it is not my job to do it.  I'm not getting paid to write a book, and I've given out a lot of free information here on chess.com for a long time.  I'm saying now, read Opening for Amateurs at your own risk beginner because I don't give a rats ass if you want to follow bad opening advice, and I'm not going to show you the proof, because I don't want to spend anytime anymore analyzing games tonight, nor do I want to spend time refuting a book that I personally have no name to critic and be taken seriously.

Lastly, I didn't bother to get "all" the books that kindaspongey recommends.  It's every chess players job to separate the wheat from the chaff themselves, along with a coach.  The only problem with that is that I don't think beginners have the knowledge available to them to separate the wheat from the chaff, which brings me to my next point, if I ever become an expert player, I will write those reviews of those books!  Because I believe wholeheartedly that there are a lot of beginner opening repertoire books out there that are complete garbage.  In my opinion, because of all the garbage out there, I think beginners are better off doing what Bobby said, and what Dan Heisman preaches.  Stay away from opening books, and learn the big five.  What are the big five?  Go to Dan Heisman's website to learn more.

Lastly, experience is the best teacher.

Eventually when I study enough master games I will be able to say how that has improved my chess, until then, all I have to say is that experience is my best teacher, because my experience, enabled me to take what was being spooned feed to me in chessable, and improvise when my opponent deviated from the lines and my opening that I cooked up ended up being a deadly weapon in blitz.  So, chessable helped me gain a general understanding of the opening by showing me a bunch of lines, and because of my experience, I was able to use that knowledge to my benefit, though I forgot the actual line that occurred in game that I studied on chessable, and it didn't matter, because I was still able to convert the game to a win, just by using my own general opening principles.

One more thing, I mentioned here that Bobby was trying to say not to study openings at all as a beginner, but I think what he meant was to not memorize lines, but just focus on learning opening principles, which is what I agree with.

For basic opening Principles if you are a beginner like I said previously get Discovering chess Openings.

For post-beginners, get the ideas behind the openings, and a copy of Fundamental Chess Openings.  I would get both, so you get a little of the old theory, and the new version.  I would go through the ideas behind the openings first because it has more of a general approach.  Don't memorize the lines in any of those books.  That would be beside the point.

Why nobody talks about working with another player (stronger) who will help you?

But it is possible only if u know someone or go in a chess club (i mean a real one, not a virtual).

I am always surprised but people nowadays seem to think that they can work all alone, grow up all alone, but do u go into a chessclub, which can be seen as a school?

Usually we learn many things at school, isnt't it?

I have no problem with urging someone to start by reading the beginning of Silman's Complete Endgame Course, but how long will that take? It seems to me that many introductory opening books discuss related middlegame concepts.

Have you tried the beginning of Silman's Complete Endgame Course?

As I remember it, it was a book about the French by IM John Watson, and I tried to convince 2Q1C that it was a book written for those with a much higher rating than that of 2Q1C.

"... The most important aspects to concentrate upon to start playing good chess (‘The Big 5’) ... Thinking process ... How do you improve at it? ... some external help. This can come in the form of: ... Reading annotated master games where thought process is discussed, ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2004)

Many introductory opening books are primarily collections of annotated games with discussion.

"... By ... following all – or almost all – of the advice, the reader will surely Get the Edge over most of their rivals on future improvement! ... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ... It is especially critical not to continually fall into opening traps – or even lines that result in difficult positions ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)

"... The first thing to learn about openings are general opening principles. ... 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. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2001)

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"... 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)

"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)

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About half a century ago, I think the Fine book, Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, was considered to be nearly essential reading, but now, I fear that its information is seriously out-of-date.

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