What questions should I ask myself to determine my playing style.

Believe the psychology of beginner to intermediate chess player is if they can only get proper development to the middle game, they will have opportunity to practice on even into the endgame.

I find non-confrontational stonewall systems such as Colle for white, and Caro-can & Semi-slav for black reasonably safe tactical limiting passports through development past move 10 and onward through the game!

You might even wonder why a tactical genius is still rated 1400, when you realize he is not playing positional strategy very well. This kind of opponent is a poor subject to practice chess with, since he's leading you into chessplay with a checkerplayer's mentality.

I have what they call a "progressive" style of play. 

I am either progressively winning or progressively losing.

I have never won a game because of an opening. I have won TONS of games in the opening, mostly (maybe 55%) because people fail to see simple one-movers, and maybe 40% of the time, because they miss straightforward two-movers. If after two years, they are still losing games like that, it's precisely because they did NOT follow that "sage" advice. In fact, if after two years they are losing very often at all, it's because they are still making simple blunders.

The advice is on a dynamic scale. It should be obvious to anyone who thinks for a little bit that the advice given to beginners does not apply to beginning intermediates, nor does advice given them apply to intermediates or to advanced players, etc. It should also be obvious that because 100% of the games by beginners are decided by gross one-move blunders, that learning the strategical niceties of the Najdorf Variation isn't going to be of much value. It's interesting, and the player can even convince himself that he's gained some deep new insight, but spending a ton of time making a conscious effort to NEVER, EVER drop a piece is obviously job #1. Unless you can prove that in your serious games, that at least 95% of the time you're avoiding one-move oversights, your only task is getting to that point. It's not hard, and it is easily accomplished, if only people stop looking for the "easy" ("fun", "entertaining", etc.) way and just take their time, concentrate, and consider their opponents' possibilities.

Chess is way more fun, the openings far more exciting and enjoyable, when one is not dropping material on every 6th move on average.

But the argument about whether to study openings instead of focusing "only on tactics" is really completely off-topic; the topic question was how to determine one's playing style, and the body of the original post was a different question: which one opening to adopt. Posted by a ~1300 player, the answer to the first is either "you have no style" or "your style is called loss by self-administered attrition"; the answer to the second is not to adopt one opening; to correct the style deficiency, not exacerbate it by pigeon holing oneself into one little corner of the chess universe where simple blunders can be committed as well as anywhere else in the universe.

> It should also be obvious that because 100% of the games by beginners are decided by gross one-move blunders<

You write long and well, but you cloud your argument with unfounded and finally incorrect assertions like the one above. First off, who is a "beginner?? Next, EVERY one of their games is lost by a "gross one-move blunder?"  And what blunders aren't "gross?" Are there light blunders, casual blunders, sexy blunders?

Seems to me to me that just about every game in chess is finally lost by a one-move blunder, no matter who you are. It all depends on how you define blunder. They say the winner is the one who makes the second-to-last mistake. 

Kudos to maskedbishop for making the best concrete suggestion. Pandolfini's Traps and Zaps ftw! Learn all of volume one and at least most of volume two, and play all of those lines. I only know of the two volumes; if there are another two or three covering queen pawn and flank openings, read and play those too.

You'll go a long way toward improving your tactics and developing your style.

I'd also plug Pandolfini's Power Mates as a great companion to those two books. That's what you need to be learning - opening tactics in general, not just one opening system in which to imprison all of your play before you can possibly find out your style.

" They say the winner is the one who makes the second-to-last mistake."

They are wrong. The loser can just as easily make the second-to-last mistake, the saying makes no sense.

I don't believe there are any Queenside Traps and Zaps books, given the closed nature of those openings.

Oh...but we aren't supposed to TELL anyone under 1800 about closed natures of certain openings...just play good moves and don't lose a piece, and keep a weather eye out for sac attacks!

Two chess players at a typical tournament. You know the kind...dingy hotel ballrooms, not a woman within two miles, a lot of people fingering chess books for sale in the other room, badly-dressed dudes sprawled out in hotel hallways being tolerated by the waitstaff...

Player One: "Well, I think I'm ready. As white I'll play d4 and use a London system, and as black I'm using the Dragon of course, but I've got the Scandinavian as a back-up if the Dragon goes south on me. 

Player Two: I'm playing e4 as white, bring it on. As black I'm playing d6 and I'll see what happens.

Player One: Uh-huh. Think you'll play an open sicilian against c5? I've fooled around a bit with the Grand Prix, it's cool if you can get his Queen knight off early.

Player Two: I don't know and I don't care. Bring it on, I just play good moves and look for tactics.

Player One: Um, yeah. So d6 as Black? You like the Pirc? I know a guy who swears by it but the Modern seems more flexible.

Player Two: What's a pirc. I'm just going to play good moves and look for tactics. Bring it on. 

Player One: Ok. I'll, uh, see you later (goes to find another player to talk to, while Player Two pulls out his well-thumbed copy of Mates in four).

Player 2 finished 10/10, while player one was clueless after the first 10 moves he played perfectly, and dropped pieces 5 times, and checkmate the others!

Different people learn differently.  I got the opening traps and zaps book as a present early on in my liking chess phase (I guess it was more than a phase heh).  I didn't like it because it didn't seem like others were playing those openings.  And when there was a trap it was because some principal was broken (like moving a piece twice in the opening).

I may be wrong through.  That's just my recollection from many years ago.

Anyway, my point was supposed to be that people learn differently.  If opening study works for you, then great.  Go play some tournaments and let us know how it worked out.  I don't think you'll do badly.  But I'm sure you'll know the feeling of "ok now I'm out of book... what the hell do I do now?" 

My assertions are neither unfounded nor incorrect. Actually, I have been collecting statistics on this very point for a while now. In almost every game (out of about 100) I've examined between players below 1600, simple tactical devices are missed often, and the game's result is in doubt until the very end (who will miss the last tactic?). Below 1300, on average (out of about 300), every 6th move, mate in one or a piece en prise is completely missed (sometimes by both players). Below 1000 (out of a sample of around 500 games), it's like a target range, with pieces being thrown out to their peril almost every single move beyond move four.

Gross blunders are overlooking pieces en prise, or mates in one.

Blunders are blunders, but not all blunders are equal, of course. Missing mate in one is a death sentence, missing a three move combination that wins a pawn is not.

I use terms approximately as follows: Beginner = new to the game, 0-1199; Beginning Intermediate = 1200-1399; Intermediate = 1400-1599; Advanced Intermediate = 1600-1799; Advanced = 1800+

No, advanced players, experts, masters, and grandmasters do not typically make one-move blunders. Examples exist, but they are not the norm. More common sources of loss are misevaluations of positions, playing several "wrong" moves as part of one mistaken idea, missing a long combination, etc. My games are no longer decided by gross blunders, nor by simple tactical devices. Instead, I and my opponents are usually losing because of missing combinations longer than 2.5 moves, or misevaluating the positions that we imagine before those moves are played. I have my share of one-movers, of course, because it was only recently that I realized everyone was actually right, that I was just fooling myself thinking there wasn't that much difference between me and masters, I just made this error here, and that one there, etc. There's a reason one person's rating is 1359 and another's is 1800, and that that means that if they play, the 1800 is expected to win almost always. Most of that reason has to do with the types of errors committed by each. Mr. 1359 makes simple tactical blunders more than once a game, Mr. 1800, on average, does not make any.

The problem with the Ruy Lopez is that Black has many defenses to chose from that are easier to play as Black.   While a master can play precesily and end up with a positional edge that a master can use to grind out a win, a non-master usually has his position explode in his face.  The Italian game was considered stronger than the Ruy, until Steintz worked out how to properly play the Ruy.   The Italian as played during the classical period with a direct attack on f7 is a good path for non-masters to follow.

Of course. That's the Party Line. Tow it, mightily. 

Actually, Player One did much better because, through his study of openings, he had learned about the positional motifs and tacticial possibilities that come with a given opening series. Sure, his opponent left book on move 6, but it didn't matter...there wasn't much book on the London to worry about and he already knew where the strengths and weaknesses of the position lay...since he, uh, read a book about it and played some GM games using the system.

On the black side, as a Dragon player he was in fine company and well-versed in the pawn structures and tactical shots that opening provided, regardless what his opponent chose to do. It was never a question of staying in book anyway...who really does...it was a matter of steering the middlegame into a direction where he was most comfortable. THAT is what openings do.

Player Two was quickly taken apart on both sides of the board. He played good moves, as in he didn't lose any pieces, but he soon found himself playing his good moves right into his opponent's favorite openings, and lost every endgame, where good moves were a distant memory to good pawn structure. 

Oh, yeah, if you study an opening in terms of the middlegame then that's great.  Many opening books leave you after move 8 or 10 with a +/= and no explanation at all.

If you study what you're doing in the opening from a middlegame context (AKA middlegame study ;) then you'll do just fine.

Yeah in pawn structure, tactical shots (e.g. Dragon Rxc3 sacrifice), typical plans etc you are talking about middlegame study.

In summary, openings should be taught from day one, along with everything else.  And don't think the kiddies don't want to learn them. Nothing lights their eyes up faster than hearing "we're going to learn a new opening today!"

The exotic names, the received wisdom and the joy of learning an established series of moves is as attractive, and often more so, than learning about forks or mates in two. I speak from experience.

Openings are something players can initiate, and that's very empowering for a student. Tactical puzzles, by contrast, are something pre-created by someone else to solve...they weren't created by the player, so it's a more passive form of learning. It's only much later that one can create their own mates in four on the board, as we know.

By all means, use the opening to teach tactics, positional considerations, and all the rest. But if you don't include them from the beginning, you are  doing your students a disservice and they won't be your students for long.

TMB

And if you don't learn them from the very beginning as part of your own self-study, you are cheating yourself too.

How many world champions have you coached BTW?

That depends.  How many have there been so far?  15?  Ok, I've coached 15 world champions.  How's that!

"Seems to me to me that just about every game in chess is finally lost by a one-move blunder, no matter who you are."

Then you are still unexperienced. Most of the time, a position is lost strategically. Badly coordinated or not so active pieces, weaknesses, etc. From these factors, tactics are coming of course. Tactics arise from strategy.
In beginners, intermediate players games blunders can be seen a lot, but in higher level, a position is lost strategically most of the time.

You should have the chess skills first, then you can easily decide what is your style.