understanding positional play

I am currently rated around 1300 on Chess.com and in that phase where I am actively exploring openings and middlegame ideas. One thing I run into a lot is opponents playing the Sicilian as Black.

From a positional perspective, I don’t feel very comfortable handling the Sicilian as White yet. Because of that, I have been trying to learn the first 8–10 moves from different sources primarily Lichess studies, GothamChess videos, and engine lines.

But when I actually go online and play, I often find my opponents following the exact same moves as suggested by engines or theory. It almost feels like we are all studying the same material (include chess.com learning section too) at the same time (and I hope it’s not engine assistance 😊).

My question is: once I’ve learned those first 8–10 opening moves, what’s the best way to truly understand their purpose and impact? How do I transition from just memorizing moves into understanding when and how to shift into tactical play?

Also, I am trying to decide which openings are worth investing more time in to build a solid foundation- like the Vienna, Ruy Lopez, Italian Game, Queen’s Gambit, the London System among others. (Can’t learn and explore simultaneously 😊) How do you choose the right openings (or gambits) to focus on, and how deep should I go into them at my level? Move to chess books, which ones?

Any advice on improving positional understanding in these Sicilian structures, along with guidance on selecting the right openings to study, would really help.

I would like to add, I mostly play daily games. And sucks at bullet or blitz.. even 10 minutes games feel rushed to me!

Any suggestions anyone? 👍👍

If you're playing daily games, I think its more likely that theyre just looking at the opening explorer (which is permitted and available on the daily game analysis board if you want to use it) during the game to get those first common theory moves. Anyways more to the point:

The Open Sicilian in particular (which im guessing you're learning about since its most popular) can be extremely nuanced, sharp, and varied in the correct way to play it depending on the exact position, making it very difficult for an intermediate player to keep the thread of. Personally, I would recommend learning the Alapin Sicilian for white, as the plans are much more clear and consistent across variations, and you're likely to have a comfortable position almost all the time - plus I'd imagine its not in the comfort zone of a lot of 1300s and there are some nice easy traps to learn.
You'll often see IQP structures from either color, or perhaps a pawn majority on one side of the board, both of which have common plans associated with them that you can get the jist of pretty quickly on youtube. In my opinion, learning how to approach common pawn structures and positions (IQP, pawn majority/minority, opposite side castling, locked center, open center, etc.) in general (as opposed to studying theory beyond a couple moves and the common plans) is much more useful at your rating, since it casts a way broader net.

That said, if you're really inclined to learn the open Sicilian I'd be glad to offer some insight, if there are specific variations or structures you struggle with drop them here and I'll say what I can, but I can't really cover the whole opening because again of how varied it is.

As far as choosing openings, right now I wouldn't worry too much about it - just look at a quick 15 min overview of some candidate openings and see if you like the feel of the common structures/play that arises. I personally would recommend the vienna, I played it up to around 1500 and could have for much longer - it has simple plans and gives good initiative. For black I've pretty much always played the sicilian in one way or another, but objectively I'd recommend pretty much any 1. e4 e5 and 1. d4 d5, or the caro-kann for either if you like it. Maybe the french. Again just find one that you like the feel of from overviews. The only type of opening I would suggest weighing against are system ones like the London system, because its easy for intermediate players to use them as an excuse to ignore truly learning concepts like piece placement and being attentive in the opening since you can practically premove your whole setup in many systems.
As far as depth, right now you don't need more than a few intro youtube videos in the opening and some thoughtful game analysis of how the opening went every now and again. To put it plainly, if your goal is improvement, there are much more useful things to spend your time on besides opening theory - you can easily get to 1600 or more with little to no opening knowledge (I know a 2200 that has never studied theory beyond the first few moves!). Think back to how i mentioned understanding structures is more useful and broad, that type of thing will help you in any opening, as will calculation, tactical adeptness, positional awareness, endgame skill, and so on. Knowing your opening through and through will make ideas in each of these categories more quick and natural for you to see in that particular opening, but strengthening those areas themselves is **MUCH** more important. I'd honestly say 10 minutes on any of those a day would be more useful to you than 30 minutes on opening theory.

Opening books are far from necessary; again I would recommend almost literally any other area of study first. The greatest and most accessible/digestible resource I can give for learning positional play AND openings is Daniel Naroditsky's speedrun series' on youtube. That said, I did study openings for hundreds of hours around the 1300-1500 level, but I did so knowing it wasn't to improve, I just genuinely enjoyed learning openings in extensive depth for the sake of it. if you're in that same boat, chessable courses are a great option, youtube has extensive resources on any noteable opening, and digging around in the opening explorer/database can be pretty fun. Again, just do that with the knowledge that it is objectively an extremely inefficient way for you to improve at the moment.

Lastly this is a lighter suggestion, but I'd really encourage you to give some 10 or 15+10 games a go every now and again. The time pressure - though can be stressful - will force you to build chess intuition rather than just relying on brute calculation and analyzing. I would argue that intuition is a considerable part of positional aptitude, and would make it much easier for you to understand positional concepts.

ItsTwoDuece's advice is consistent with what I've read elsewhere, especially about spending time on opening theory when your rating is still below 1600.

The Alapin as an anti-Sicilian is also recommended by IM Max Illingworth in The Best 1.e4 Openings For White Below 1600 (on Lichess).

Before I took a 14-year break from chess (until March this year), I also noticed that the Closed Sicilian could work as a surprise factor. Perhaps not in daily games, but the first time I used it against a much stronger opponent in a classical OTB game, it confused my opponent to no end. (I think I got a draw out of that game.)

Another piece of advice I have read is selecting openings that rely on similar concepts and plans. For example:

• The Stonewall Attack for white.
• The French Defence (against 1. e4) and the Slav Defence (against 1. d4) for black.

Of course, what combinations of openings are recommended will differ from author to author.