A question about openings

Consider a beginner, 900-1000 here on chess.com.

Studying openings is useless at this level, it seems to me to be established.

With a view to improving a little, my question is: without studying anything, is it better to choose a basic repertoire ( few lines to learn just with practice, and to play forever ), or can it be useful to explore more lines and openings ?

For exemple: against Ruy Lopez I always play 3. …,Nf6 , which makes me feel “at home” because somehow I’ve learned to manage it. The same against French ( always 3. e5 ), and so on. Is that okay, or is it also good to try other moves ( d6 or a6 against Lopez, etc ) ?

Thank you

Hi, 

You can play what you feel most comfortable with, maybe worth playing openings with not so much theory then you won't get into issues 

Chess Openings Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/openings-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

You need to know enough to get out of the opening without being lost.

There are so many resources and websites out there now that help you to learn openings that most people are doing it. That wasn't the case many years ago. So I would say times are changing.

I've studied a couple of basic opening courses on chesable for the last couple years. Even at my beginner level I find other players who  have studied similar openings and know them well. I think you put yourself in too much of a disadvantage if you don't at least know the basics.

Openings are irrelevant at anything below master level, and as others have said, you only need to know how to get out of the opening phase without any serious mistakes. Pick an opening strategy that you like and stick to it. I actually recommend avoiding e4/e5 to start the game, because of the many different paths the game may take. I'm a fan of moving knights early, and trying to castle kingside within the first 4-5 moves. Oh, and make sure you know how to defend against Scholars Mate and its variations, because we face it a lot at this level.

@1

"Studying openings is useless at this level, it seems to me to be established." ++ Yes.

"is it better to choose a basic repertoire" ++ Yes, play the same to accumulate experience

"can it be useful to explore more lines and openings ?" ++ No. Changeing openings loses more.

"against Ruy Lopez I always play 3. …,Nf6" ++ That is good.

"The same against French ( always 3. e5 )" ++ That is good.

"Is that okay" ++ Yes

"is it also good to try other moves ( d6 or a6 against Lopez, etc ) ?" ++ No.

 Livening up the position by choosing the right opening lines is an art form.

What works best often depends on the level you play at. Beyond a certain point, openings like the Budapest Gambit, Chigorin Defence, Halloween Gambit and Elephant Gambit are just bad.

On the other hand, some openings, like the Berlin Wall and Catalan, can be too sophisticated even for players at an expert level.

“Tactics is knowing what to do, when there is something to do.

Strategy, on the other hand, is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.”

Once you understand and concentrate your efforts to advance, support and promote your pawns you will unlock the key to understand:

Opening theory
Middle game strategy
Endings
Connecting these three phases together, will ensure that your pieces will support your pawn advance from beginning to end.

A good opening creates advantages.

An important concept in the opening is tempo.

Getting good pawn structure is essential in the opening.

 Any player careless with his pawns will find himself hitting a wall pretty quickly.

Opening determine the terrain for the middle game.

So why not make use of the opening to achieve a position or structure that you are good at or enjoy playing?

Some ideas in the opening are quite deep or tricky, and will be difficult to decipher by pure computation.

Therefore, learn the popular openings to avoid traps and early blunders.

 It is very important to study the middlegame and endgame as well to play a balanced game.

You can play those moves but it's better to switch it up when you're a beginner.
You're obviously not ready yet to go beyond the book yet, so it's crucial in fact to learn openings and established lines. Chess is a centuries-old industry-don't be naive thinking that you'll get anywhere without tapping into the existing body of knowledge. You have to go through the libraries which is unfortunate for the non-studious. But then chess, since it's a mind sport, is not for you.

Thank you all.

@zone_chess:  I can’t wait to start studying seriously ( specially some complex openings like Sicilian Defense ), but I seemed to understand that at my level it’s good to focus on something else, and postpone openings studies to a later stage ( if I ever get there, as I hope ).

Yes, it's my current level. Pretty low... 

It comes your style, are you an agressive or defensive player? Are you a tactical or a positional / strategical player? Do you enjoy closed or open positions?

1.e4 openings tend to open and tactical play and 1.d4 ones tend to closed strategical positions.

 Choose an opening that has a reasonable reputation, suits your style, and does not have too many branches. If it has branches, then it's a white's choice.
Some good choices among this are Stonewall, Queen's gambit, King's Gambit (it had better years), some say Scotish, or Giocco piano; or the Vienna.

Choose a solid defense against 1.e4 that fits your style and you can choose the branch you can play. French is good if you like defense play with counterattack.

It depends on your goals. Do you want to improve or do you just want to have fun?

Improvement involves work and objectivity and change. Fun involves picking things you like. You can often do both if you know yourself and understand openings some.

How can I prevent a four-wheel drive

"900-1000" a beginner, psh try 100-500 man,     you start at 500.

also good openings

-kings and queens pawn for capturing the center early

aswell as londen and english work. these develop your bishop early and allows you to castle queen side before middle game.

Réti opening is great against early queen movers and is near unstoppable in the early game because you can preform the fried liver and take your opponents rook really early if you play correctly. And if your opponent doesnt know what your doing.

(we dont talk about me being 500 and knowing a lot about chess)

Hi! I think that there is a general agreement in that spending too much time in openings is not useful at your level. The develpment of your chess skills should be as balanced as possible. Openings, although important, are just one of those skills. You need to learn typical middle games,  tactics and strategy , and endgames too. And need to play and analyse your weaknesses. So I would suggest you to have a basic opening repertoire , for instance 1.e4 as white, and as black meet 1.e4 with 1...e5, and 1.d4 with 1....d5. Then care for the other skills. When you are all leveled up, then go back to openings. 

Good luck!

Daniel Naroditsky would say you should start studying some openings almost from the beginning.  His opinion is not shared by everyone (as you can see from the responses you got above), but with your rapid rating north of 1000, I tend to agree with his opinion, you should start looking into some.  

The Sicilian is a lot of fun, and at 1000 you'll find that it's so complicated that most players, while they know the basic opening moves, it tends to equalize itself because it's so sharp for both sides.  That makes is fun in my opinion, even if you don't know the theory, and nobody at 1000 does.  At 2700 it's tough enough some players avoid it, lol.  

Most people who advocate studying will say stick with e4 at first. It's what you're going to run into the most.  And for most games you really only need to make it to move 5 or 6 to be reasonably safe that you avoided the major traps. After that, try not to drop central pawns and just play to keep your pieces solid till you get to a middlegame and you'll be fine.