What to do after opening

i dont have houdini 4 just chessmaster

why chessmaster is 2982 ELO on my PC.

But what do you guys mean with any of these engines mentioned, are you suggesting i just keep playing the engine and getting stomped by it? Or using it to analyze my games AFTER they are over?

Study middle game strategy and pawn structure chess videos

If you always end up at a dead end after the opening, I'd suggest playing online games and using a database to compare possible moves during the opening. You start thinking about the move order, and why a particular move is best. I had my eyes opened recently when I ended up playing the Italian as Black; I'd always assumed that the order of the "normal" developing moves was pretty much interchangeable up until about move 10 or so, as long as you didn't make any obvious blunders. It isn't! Here's what happened to my opponent after he made the "normal" move Bg5 on move 10:

When you learn an opening, what you should really be learning is not a series of moves (though that is part of it), but the ideas and plans that are common/good in the resulting positions.  Basically, if you don't know what to do after the opening, you haven't learned that opening.

thanks dunnoitall, a weir?

If I’m white, after the castle and development what do I do