Scandinavian Defense, Modern Variation

Uhm - You shouldn't be studying openings at all.  Just looking at your ratings, you need to worry more about not hanging pieces, or allowing 1-move threats to be executed.

You should be studying a beginner's endgame book and a beginner's tactics book.  Forget about openings right now.  They are the least of your worry.

Memorizing is generally bad, but learning the ideas is very helpful. I would learn the first 5 moves of a bunch of different openings so you see how people bring out their pieces and what early attacks may or may not work. I would reply to 1.e4 with 1...e5 and reply to 1.d4 with 1...d5 to fight for spcae from move one.

Learn, for example, the Italian game:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 O-O

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.c3 O-O is the same position by a different move-order

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 Two Knight's defense

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5?! learn why this is worse

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Be7 5.O-O O-O is another way to get the pieces out.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4!? Bxb4 5.c3 Evan's gambit

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.O-O Nxe4

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.O-O Bc5!? Max Lange attack

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5 d5

That's pretty much everything you need to know about the Italian game (3.Bc4). You can do the same for the Spanish (Ruy Lopez, 3.Bb5) and also the Petroff (2...Nf6 for Black) and you will have a good grounding in 1.e4 e5 openings. Put all of these lines on a board to see what they look like. A real board, not an online one.

Nice

In response to post #17 (Expertise87):

How are "Master Games" played by unrated players?  I may be wrong, but I thought that meant they were played by masters...

And for an improvement on the black side, this is the line I was taught when I first learned this opening:

You can argue that you would rather have a one-point advantage than have all your minor pieces developed, but black's position hardly seems like an Icelandic "blunder".

No it's not - please read the Portuguese specific thread. I'm not going to rehash it all here.

I can't seem to find it...could you please provide a link?  Thanks!

Yes it is - please do your own work. If you want, I can individually refute every line you post.

Greenatic, just because they CALL it a Master Games database does not make it a Master Games database. I could find hundreds of examples of non-master games in there.

At the end of your line, Black has very minor compensation for the pawn and White has a nice advantage after 9.a3 (stopping pieces coming to b4) O-O 10.Be3 Rhe8 11.Nc3 where White will soon catch up in development and Black has no chance at all of even thinking about winning the game. Why trade queens if you're playing a gambit like that?

Also, look into 8.a3 instead of immedately trading queens, you might find that Black's position is just bad.

Alright thanks a bunch. But upon reaching that level how would one approach openings? And btw I got Jeremy Silamn's complete course from beginner to master on endgame, been studying that? really helpful, and can u recommend any beginner tactic books?

Expertise87:  Please do post examples of non-master games from the database.  I haven't found any.

9. ...O-O-O is superior to ...O-O.

8. a3 O-O-O 9. Be3 (9. Qxe7 Bxe7 10. Be3 Bg4) Bg4.

Expertise - I very much doubt that, but in any event please go to the Portuguese specific thread where the lines are already discussed.

I'm sorry, but I can't find that thread.  Could you please post a link?

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/is-the-portuguese-gambit-playable

Thank you!  I may have to try it sometime.

Until you stop hanging pieces (hanging = leaving them unprotected so that the opponent can take them in one move), you have absolutely no use of any book.

Once you start stopping that, you can worry about seeing forks, discovered attacks, zwischenzüge, etc. in books. Not before.

As for opening, follow basic principles and you will be fine. See for instance http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/ss/OpeningBasics_4.htm (this is page 4/5 on purpose, it is the most important one).

Expertise87, in order to see if you were truly correct, I fed Critter (a chess engine) the position after 5. Qe7.  All moves were conducted to 15-move search depth and I analyzed through the first 20 moves.  This is the line.  As you can see, this opening is not a blunder at all.  With perfect play, white maintains a meager advantage (which is probably true of most openings).

Without engine, 17.Nd2 pops out like an obvious mistake to my eyes.

What is wrong with 17.Bxd4 and only after Nd2, where White has still his additionnal pawn and Black, not White, has weak pawns ?

Depth 15 is nothing...I use Houdini 3 and on my hardware it reaches depth 25 pretty quickly. Here is the most prominent suggested Houdini improvements for White:

17.Bxd4 (Irontiger's idea) cxd4 18.Nd2 gives White +0.68 at depth 25. Even 17.b4 is better than 17.Nd2.

How much did you pay Critter to play that move? :)

Something I have noticed in my short time on here at chess.com is that the weaker the player is the more likely they rely on these engines to tell them what is good or bad or prove a point. Stronger players seem to verbalize their move choices and tell the ideas for why a move is good or bad (or opening) with little engine talk or citing. In my limited knowledge about chess I think it doesn't matter if a line, move, position, or opening is considered good or okay by engine standards if we can't understand how to play from there and know why. It seems that stronger players are saying this opening isn't as good because black has to do more work proving equality or has more chances to mess up than white does. This might well be true, but my one consideration is if I feel I know how to play these positions better than my opponents, or from a practical standpoint I would have better odds finding the right moves than most of my opponents and I learn a lot from most of these positions, is it still okay to play it for now? I'm not claiming the opening is awesome or even good, just that I can play it pretty well and I am learning how to use pieces to attack and develop quickly and things that maybe once I learn more chess stuff when I do switch to reliable opening those things will carry over?

Alright, I don't blatantly hang pieces but i do really stupid moves, but ive been getting better and better at avoiding that, ill take ur advice and wait til ive stopped hanging