Why lower rated players should learn openings

@ ThrillerFan, you did a post why advance player should know their opening, I agree with you; especially expert level. But even at expert level, the expert who is competent on tactics and endgame will win against a expert who concentrate on opening only. To know down the line that I can win in a certain pawn structure in endgame is bigger advantage than knowing the Najdorf, the player who is very competent in tactics and know more in the endgame control the board not opening expert.

@ Morphysrevenges, totally agree. I will add and going over Morphy's games will help a low rated player too.

Yep...Look for ideas, not moves.

"... the study of the simplest endings should precede the analysis of the openings and the middlegame." - Averbakh's Chess Endings Essential Knowledge

"Every now and then someone advances the idea that one may gain success in chess by using shortcuts. 'Chess is 99% tactics' - proclaims one expert, suggesting that strategic understanding is overrated; 'Improvement in chess is all about opening knowledge' - declares another. A third self-appointed authority asserts that a thorough knowledge of endings is the key to becoming a master; while his expert-friend is puzzled by the mere thought that a player can achieve anything at all without championing pawn structures.

To me, such statements seem futile. You can't hope to gain mastery of any subject by specializing in only parts of it. A complete player must master a complete game ..." - FM Amatzia Avni (2007)

"If you want to play chess competitively, then you must develop an opening repertoire." - GM Patrick Wolff (1997)

One possible place to start is with the book, Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms.

"If you find an opening here that appeals to you and you wish to find out more about it, the next step would be to obtain an introductory text devoted entirely to that subject." - GM John Emms (2006)

"Throughout the book Emms uses excellently chosen examples to expand the readers understanding of both openings and chess in general. Thus equipped the student can carry this knowledge forward to study individual openings and build an opening repertoire. ... For beginning players, this book will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board." - FM Carsten Hansen, reviewing the 2006 Emms book

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

Another possibility is Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014).

http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html

I believe that it is possible to see a fair portion of the beginning of Tamburro's book by going to the Mongoose Press site.

https://www.mongoosepress.com/excerpts/OpeningsForAmateurs%20sample.pdf

Amateurs should learn openings if they want to win more games.

I think you should stick with bridge, Warren.

I think the biggest thing that hurts beginner improvement is generic statements like this one. "Never learn openings..." "Only work on tactics..." "Never study grandmaster games..." "Memorize grandmaster games..."

Maybe the truth is that regardless of what method you use, if you put in a lot of time and effort you will improve?

Perhaps the best method depends on who is using it.

how can I select opponents. ie the range of level

My take, for what it's worth, is that once you have the basic opening principles down, the next step is to learn practical systematic ways to apply them. Experimenting with moves within the rough rules is fun, but soon you want to get away with tentative semi-random opening moves and into something established which people have already figured out works well. Kind of like learning major and minor scales once you learn the names of the notes, and then moving on to constructing chords or simple melodies; aimlessly plinking around on the keys only gets you so far.

Thank You Sir!

Its a goal.  If i reach it fine, if i dont i will still love the game, and playing.  Its a no lose situation :-)

Indeed. Some players will always advocate the same rhetoric. Espouse generalism, harsh criticism and hardline statements of opinion instead of sharing in the objectively and openness of a thread.

Memorization and studying go well hand in hand. No one can study a position with no clues without drawing upon one's memory of similar patterns, tactics or strategy.

Repetition of mates in multitudes (mate in one, mate in two, mate in three) some would say, like flash cards, is not studying in itself, but forms a basis in which one after awhile will derive some working mental mechanics. 

In which, when applied to studying tactical positions will involve recalling said knowledge.

I would say.

Studying positional problems require, heh, memorization of basic strategies. Not trying to understand them. And example would be Geometry. One cannot begin, to "understand" it without memorization of the basic axioms, principles.

Of said, the Sicilian Najdorf. You have to absolutely memorize critical lines. No "ifs", "ands", or "buts" about it. It takes time to understand it. Like any Martial Art. The earlier the better. Tactics & positional strategy, endgame fundamentals can be improved during this time. There's no law that you cannot do both when making this opening, or any opening, a part of your repertoire.

"... Half a dozen different openings, well learned, are about all the average player needs to obtain good results. ..." - from Capablanca's Primer of Chess

Heh. A prodigy like Capa could well relate easily about his own personal chess upbringing. In an age where theory was just forming. 

What we can glean from, however, is that he did believe in being solid in some openings. To absorb some lines, study them, irrespective of chess ability.

A common argument against lower rated players learning openings goes something like this: All you need to learn are opening principles. That’s all I did to reach such and such a ranking. This argument is normally made by Class B and higher player. If you review the games of these players you invariably find that they and their opponent play book openings 5 to 10 moves deep. Furthermore they normally have a handful of openings they play most of the time. So are these people closet openings studiers?

Yes and No. Do they own a large number of opening books and study them in secret? I don’t think so. However there are a number of ways people learn openings. 1. Some people play book openings naturally. That is how book openings got their start. The documentation of the beginning moves made by the best players. 2. You can learn a lot of book openings by playing people who know them. This is a common occurrence in the sub 1000 game, every now and then an unsound tricky opening will spread among these players like wild fire. 3. You can learn book openings from reading books like Logical Chess Move by Move. In his discussion of blacks second move of the first game Chernev review a number of alternatives to 2…Nc6 and explains why they are inferior. Can you really read Logical Chess Move by Move and not learn at least 3 or 4 openings?

Another important fact is that both sides are playing book openings. Book openings are based on opening principles, both sides fight for control of the center in one way or the other, under these conditions opening principles often are a good guide in selecting moves. However, if your opponent launches an attack on f7 very early like the second move of the opening, following opening principles could lead you to ruin, you need to consider the tactics first. Domino’s Gambit is a good example Opening principles will never tell you to play Nxe5, and it is not the easiest tactic to see. By not knowing why the alternatives to 2…Nc6 are weaker and how to take advantage of them you will miss a number of easy wins.

When you reach expert, I never said that you shift gears and study nothing but openings.  It just needs to be added to the list.  By no means do you ever stop studying middlegames and endgames!

However, the opening is not going to lose it for you at the 1200 level.  Your opponent and yourself will make a bajillion mistakes between the opening and the end of the game.  Many don't think they made a mistake because their opponent never took advantage of it because they were too weak to see the problem.  That doesn't change the fact that players rated between 1000 and 1500 make at minimum a dozen mistakes per game, and that's a dozen by each player, whether that mistake is not taking advantage of something available to you, going from winning to equal, or committing an outright blunder, going into a lost position that your opponent probably won't figure out anyway because he's only 1400.

That said, at the 2000 level, if your opponent knows his middlegame ideas and has strong endgame knowledge, you really could lose the game in the opening, and remain lost for the next 30 moves before you actually resign!

He probably has no idea what "6 No Trump East" means!