If you are starting out at chess you should not be concentrating on studying an opening line 20 moves deep. If someone plays a line that deviates from your line early you could be lost and not know what do do.
You should start by learning double king pawn openings first to develop your tactical ability first. The other openings such as
the French Defense or Sicilian may require you to know more
about theory.
When I first starting playing chess I was studying books on tactics
such as 1001 checkmates and 1001 combinations. I was also studying
books on traps to get easy wins. Traps are really tircky because
your opponent could go wrong right in the opening. Tactics is what
separates all the rating classes from GM down.
You should also know your basic endgames such as B, N & K vs
K. When I teach a beginner player I usually start by teaching
the R&K vs K endgame and other basic endgames.
I also studied complete chess games by masters to fully
understand how to play the game. You should find a
master to emulate and play like that master.
I later studied books on pawn structure such as Andrew
Soltis book called Pawn Structure and also studied
Aron Nimzovich and his book called My System. Soltis
had other books on various subjects like defense
and calculation. I also studied the Euwe series on the
middlegame.
For a number of years I played standad openings but later
added some unorthodox chess openings to my opening
repertoire. And I developed a love for opening gambits
and loved to attack. If you can attack then you would
also be good at defense.
Best Regards
DarthMusashi
hey,
I was just fumbling through the openings study here on Chess.com -- I would probably purchase a premium account if I thought that the opening guides were a little more organized and coherent.
I would like, for example, to click 'cecilian defense', and from that single page explore all main-line variations of the cecilian defense, 20 moves in, in that same window, just clicking the arrow button and watching the various opening variations play themselves out.
but the opening learning tool here is somewhat disorganized, no?