Queen's Pawn opening, Zukertort! (bless you)

Both videos were great. I'm going with the London Jobava for now, slightly less favored and more complicated or now. Thanks again, all of you. My questions were all more than answered. It's much appreciated. I'm rewatching the Jobava again right now. Then I'm off to play Stockfish again, with a couple of new ideas.

I will check that out. Thanks. I saw that at one point yesterday, you're absolutely correct, it's the London System, Colle Zukertort Variation, pretty much exactly what I've been playing. I did try the London a couple of times, putting the Knight on d2.Stockfish likes that better but, again, I'm trying out Jobova / Colle-Zukertort, right now. I learned a lot yesterday. Thanks again, you and everyone else here.

Don't study openings yet, it'll stunt ur growth. An example of that is the mate in 2 u missed after Nxe5. Instead, spend that time on tactics and learning strategies connected to PAWN STRUCTURES. Also learn basic endings thoroughly. U'd be amazed how many games u can win just by being good at endings.

That's generally good advice, for beginners, sure. Here's the deal:

First, I played a little as a child, almost never as an adult, took it up in mid 2022, played at Lichess for a couple of months, joined chess.com in September, 2022, played at both sites for about a week, and exclusively here ever since... I quit playing chess entirely for almost a year, taking it up again about 6 weeks ago.
i'm wanting to take it more seriously at this point though I don't think I'll ever much obsess about ratings. We'll see how that works out.

Anyway, my first mistake was, yes, to try and learn - memorize, basically - openings... tedious, boring and mosrtly got me nowhere. What finally got me out of the 500-600 range was to:

1 - actually take pains to respect those (generally acknowledged) opening principles: play for the center, don't move pieces twice, develop your minor pieces, castle early

2 -Not rushing my moves. Early on, I'd look for what was the best move, as best I could tell, then make it, often without taking the time to thoroughly check out the board... what pieces might need defending most of all. I'd often get so absorbed by my own attack that I neglected to defend... lots of blunders.

3 -Not trading pieces unless it was actually to my advantage or at least not to my disadvantage. At first, it seemed like just normal chess to always trade. Bang bang bang... a few moves into the game and half the pieces are gone.

4 -Learning the end game. This was about the only thing I studied that actually made a difference. I studied it enough that it's probably my greatest strength. Agaonst an equal opponent, if I can get to the end game fairly equal, I feel very good about my chances, and my stats here prove I'm correct.

5 -being consistent with my opening, not just memorizing lines but more so trying to understand them.

About that, I sarted doing this: wanting to choose one or the other, I decided to lead with d4. Practicing against Stockfish, remembering those basic opening principles and, paying attention to what I was told were my best moves, I slowly developed a few lines then started using them in my games. I gained about 200 rating points in around three weeks, getting to 800 or so by June of last year. Then quit, as I said, coming back about six weeks ago, intending to improve my game.

I continued with that opening and thought it'd be helpful to study it a little. How might I do better? The computer, in most of my games as White, kept saying "Queen's Pawn Opening, Zukertort Variation" (or Chigorin Variation). I tried to find this everywhere, including at Lichess and on YouTube... no luck and lots of confusion, including reading Zukrtort was synonymous with Reti (this was about a week ago). Finally, two days ago, I started this thread.

And I'm very grateful for all the advice here, sincerely.

So, it almost goes without saying that the more important thing is not memorizing best moves but to be able to look at a board, familiar or not, and figure out the best move. But, for example, I tried 960 and didn't care for it. It takes away the advantage of memorizing lines, I understand, possibly a good idea but, personally, I missed seeing a normal opening, those familiar positions, more of them the longer I play, that I can spend time thinking about and studying. Still, I'm not trying to learn a lot of openings and, unlike when I started out, I'm not impressed, for example, to come across YouTube videos titled, like, "Learn this killer new opening!" or "Crush all your opponents with the Caro Kann!". And I hate it, for example, when beginners try to, basically kill the game early with the Schoolboy's/Scholar's Mate, thinking they don't need to actually learn how to play, just memorize three or four moves and hope their opps aren't paying attention.

For Black, I don't have much of an opening, except that I usually respond to e4 with e5, and to d4 with d5. I've been trying the King's Indian lately, after bfriefly trying the "Modern" opening, but it's mostly been a disaster. I'm thinking of studying that next (I'm seriously wanting to learn and improve this time).

That was great! Perfect. Thanks for sharing that... it's now in my Library.

The KID IMO isn't conducive to club players.

It's a low frequency defense. White has a plethora ways of dealing with it. As a club player if you play that the KID your going spend a lot of time on it.. just to see an actual "main line" one out 5 to 10 games. Usually what's going to happen... Your going to get blasted by people playing the London set up, or the Semi Classical i.e. (Something other than a main line and they will be good at it...because a) having specialized in it & b) people for reasons unknown to me, cause practicality isn't one of them.. love to play the KID.

After a while you will realize that no matter what you do... there is no magic line that thwarts these Anti KID openings ... So defending against them will always be on your radar. All the while, you will have to know KID theory at an evermore level, the farther your progress up the ELO latter. (REMEMBER... IT'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE A LOW FREQUENCY DEFENSE.

Ah. Interesting. You know, tbh, a friend who likes the King's Indian, kept pushing me to try it... I finally did, but it always feels off to me, at least really unlike what feels natural. So you just helped me decide. I'm going with my first instinct. It's not for me. Interesting too to hear it's weak against the London, something like the opening I play. I;m going back to just playing it by ear for now, starting with e5 to their e4 or d5 to their d4. Thanks!

No problem, I almost exclusively play flank openings such as the Dutch, benoni, Carro, Catalan etc. so I'm not very familiar with e4 e5 / d4 d5 with black.

I looked at the Dutch at one point. I'll look again.

There's a lesser known set up system for black that looks like this but I don't remember the name