My coach does not like Jeremy Silman...

I'm known on this board for being a contrarian about opening study. I'm not advocating that beginners memorize a lot of lines, BUT...I see a lot of useless, warm toast advice like "just play good opening moves." I've beaten more than my share of players over the board who did just that because they didn't have a clue about openings. And I've lost my share for the same reasons.

There is a strong credo in the chess community that warns people off studying openings...even though most of the doomsayers have libraries groaning with opening books. I also think studying tactics in isolation is a waste of time, unless you really like that sort of thing...it's VERY rare that you will see a given pattern in an OTB game, once you get past the usual stuff aimed at strict beginners.  

And for what it's worth, John Watson takes on that "don't study openings" canard himself in his fourth volume of the aforementioned openings books...and he's a much much better player than I am :)

My grand total of opening books library : 2. (out of 20 or so owned books and many more read)

Of course having some basic knowledge of openings is important. The trap is that you can always learn a bit more about such and such opening and the work put into that immediately pays off at club, so that you end up learning 20-moves deep lines while still being lost in the woods if the opponent ever deviates into an almost losing position.

FWIW I've only read 1 opening book and it was Kosten's 100 page book on the English... and I don't even play the English anymore

I've also beaten my fair share of players over the board who didn't have a clue about openings... except they were the ones playing memorized moves and I was the one understanding.  I guess I should say they didn't have a clue about the middlegame... but that's really the whole point of openings.  If all you've done is memorize moves you haven't really learned anything.

Let me put it this way, if you can't keep up with 2000 uscf/fide players tactically, you don't know what pawn structure is or how to get middle game plans from it, and you havent worked over the games in Silman's Amateurs Mind or some such similar book about positional elements, you have absolutely NO BUSINESS studying the opening unless you just want to waste your time.

The only place you should be learning opening lines before then is what you happen to pick up going over annotated master and grandmaster games.

I don't understand what could possibly be wrong with Silman's Endgame book. Even Susan Polgar recommended it during the WCC. 

Go prompt your coach about Lev Alburt and the soviet school of chess. Which is my current favourite. I love the tactics training pocket book. 

Remember, in chess there is no doctrine. Every point needs to be proven. 

>The only place you should be learning opening lines before then is what you happen to pick up going over annotated master and grandmaster games.<

I think there's a lot of confusion over what "studying openings" can mean. Certainly beginners should be discouraged from memorizing snowdrifts of lines. But they should not be scared off from reading about openings, learning how they are related to each other, the pawn skeletons that result from them, and memorizing about a dozen at least 8 moves deep. 

To the claim that when the opponent "goes off book" that memorization isn't helpful...I argue that it is. If your fellow amateur opponent goes off book in the first 8 moves or so, they are likely making an error or a weaker choice - and THAT is the time to look for a tactical or positional advantage.

So basic opening study, at any level of ability, can help your game. Ignore the extremists: don't wait until you're rated 2000 to study openings, or play d4, or watch Petrosian videos. Let's face it, you're very likely never going to be rated 2000, no matter how many tactical puzzles you do, so have some fun :)

One other comment: these same advanced players who tell the lower ranks to stick to e4 and e5 are the same players who rack up easy wins at Swiss tournaments having them for tactical lunch. It's a bit self-serving to tell lower-rated players to flame out in a Ruy Lopez to some Class B player in the opening rounds. 

Whenever I've beaten a player 400+ points higher than me at one of these benighted Swisses (and it's happened a few times), it's when I played d4...and I'm no QGD pro, I just know I have a lot better chance surviving than in some open game melee. 

Well, I read both of them, and they're great. Lolololol for your coach, he probably lost to Silman badly or something.

you make me want to get his vol 4 which is much more advanced than I need, but I AM intrigued. Would you care to say more about what you understand Watson saying there about openings study. Its not going to change my study plan for now, but I AM intrigued. 

If Silman's books are about keeping the reader happy - which is also something I see in his writing on chess.com - this is great teaching approach. 

People want to be happy and have fun as they improve in any field. Any teacher who can grant that to people is worth way more than his weight in pure diamonds!

Its true, if I wasn't having 1250 players play into my carefully designed opening traps theres no way I could maintain my 2050 uscf rating 

your sarcasm neither addresses the sense nor the logic of what maskedbishop wrote. You may have a higher rating than both of us combined, but you apparently don't have much class. 

Oh you mean the part about the conspiracy of higher rated players purposefully telling everyone below them bad advice to maintain their dominance? I think I addressed the logic and sense quite well myself.

Also I personally play 1. d4 so I don't know why anyone would play 1. e4, the games are way to dry and boring. 1. d4 leads to complications and unbalanced play which I enjoy, and would recommend all players of any level to go with 1. d4. Not to mention 1. e4?? falls into the opening trap 1... c6!! 0-1.

As far as memorizing, you need to not fall for traps, so play some blitz and look up the openings afterwards.  If an opening gives you trouble, play it as the other side and see what people do against it.  So yes, you need to memorize a little (remember the traps).

But DON'T memorize lines out of ECO for example.  And for the most part stay away from opening books.  You can use them for reference after a game, but don't just memorize.  Go on chessgames.com or TWIC and get some games out of your preferred opening.  3, 10, 50, 100 or whatever.  Modern games are important, but also 100 year old games for more lines and perspective.  Short games show traps.  Long games show standard middlegame ideas.

IMO if you're U2000 and facing an opponent who is also U2000 in a tournament game, then knowing the idea of what your position (and your opponent's) is trying to do vs aimlessly staying active and hoping a tactic will appear is worth something like 200 rating points (all else being equal, e.g. you can match your opponent tactically).

So yes, I sort of know openings.  At least I can stay in book for 5-10 moves in all regular openings that I play.  But not because I have a book for each, the Ruy, French, Sicilian, Caro, Pirc, and Alekhine's.  I understand development, the center, and what the pawn structure says about what the middlegame will require.  Often I look at my games afterwards and I'm in book for 10+ moves and I didn't even know it during the game.  But when the hyper accelerated dragon or Schliemann blows me away in 15 moves in a blitz game I look it up and do a few minutes worth of memorization.

> Would you care to say more about what you understand Watson saying there about openings study. <

Sure, I'll tell you what he says verbatim. Watson, Vol 4, p 290: "While other types of knowledge are necessary if you are to become a complete player, opening study is the single most practical and efficient means of improving your mastery of the game as a whole."

He makes a pretty powerful case that tactics, strategy and endgame study all flow from the study of specific openings. Because of this, he states that if you are limited on study time, then study openings. He then proceeds to categorize them at four different levels, based on playing ability 

It's a strong refutation to hoary chestnuts like "just play good opening moves" and "don't study openings until you're an advanced player."  

>But DON'T memorize lines out of ECO for example.<

I couldn't agree more. Does anyone even have ECO anymore? Studying openings and memorizing lines are two different things. I'm just pushing back against the Common Wisdom (which is still in a great many chess instruction books and parroted by a great many people) that beginning and intermediate players should not study openings. 

I used to teach beginners at a summer camp, and I can tell you they LOVE the openings. They love the names, the history behind them, and which ones their favorite players use. It's like being given secret knowledge, and that excites new players (hell, it excites all of us).

Walking them through a Two Knights or a Ruy Lopez, and explaining the basic tactics and positional concepts from those, was miles ahead of just telling them "open with a center pawn, knights before bishops, castle early."

Reti said that you shouldn't memorize openings, at least when you are a beginner. Instead, learn only the basic strategy and ideas of the opening, because the lines could be wrong and constantly change. I agree with him. Opening theory constantly change, and a line which was "good" even 10 years ago now could be bad. But if you improve your general chess skills, these won't never change. In my club there is a kid who talks about Sicilian Najdorf and Accelerated Dragon and he couldn't play a simple KP vs K ending.