Well, if you're not interested in traps how about Ward's "Improve Your Opening Play" or Fine's "Ideas Behind the Chess Opening"? These both focus on improving your knowledge of opening principles! Of course, you can also learn alot by analyzing your own opening, those of other players here, and those of masters
Once you've got some grounding in principles and seen how a variety of openings work, maybe it will be easier to pick one that suits your style. And you will probably play whichever opening you choose much better, too. :)
Ive been spending about 2 to 3 hours 5 days a week on tactics puzzles, and my standard and blitz ratings on chesstempo.com are about 1700 and 1500 respectively.
However, I struggle to reach any real tactical positions like the ones in the puzzles b/c I'm usually down material by the time I reach the middle game due to my general ignorance of opening play.
I've spent some time on the basic principles, but I still am having a hard time coming out of the opening with any equality much less an edge. This leads me to believe I'm in need of some serious opening study. Please note that I'm playing opponents in Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition PC and having difficulty beating anyone over 1000.
I know I want to study e pawn openings, and I like the Ruy Lopez. I have very very little experience playing black. What openings should I learn, and what basic variations if I want to begin to move toward tournament play?
Lastly, I'm not interested in just learning a bunch of traps. I'd rather lose more tournament games while becoming more solidy chessically than to get some quick wins with traps. I want to beat strong players, not weak ones.
Suggestions?