One simple "Openings Explorer" is 365chess:
https://www.365chess.com/opening.php
You'll need to sign up with an account if you want to look more than a few moves into an opening, but it's free.
Just click on the moves and it will tell you how many games are on file in that line and what the statistical results were (White wins XX%, Draws YY%, Black wins ZZ%).
As soon as you type this:
"I'll just be a bit long-winded here"
That should be you signal to change your plan. Just don't do it.
Wow great answers that address my concerns really well, thanks for the comments so far!
"rote memorization" is not the way to go.
What you need to do i play over games that use openings you want to get familiar with.
You want to gain some understanding of "why" the pieces, and pawns go where they do.
As soon as you type this:
"I'll just be a bit long-winded here"
That should be you signal to change your plan. Just don't do it.
This from the fellow who just posted on his home page, "Don't let other people's bad energy affect you, or the bad people win. I'm all about peace and love. Thanks to all." Uhh ... riiiight ...
Thanks to the OTHERS for the helpful comments so far.
Just giving you good advice. Sorry I hurt your feelings.
Yes, the "Big Database" is free. This is my choice of free opening exolorers. The "Master Database" is very limited for free. Make the moves on the website (no downloading). Most popular moves are givien in a list format by # of games with that move. Note: You may notice the numbers change and make no sense. Transpositions occur causing a postion to be obtained by different move orders.
I also use SCID on the Go (Android). SCID vs PC is much better. I use the Kingbase (database) and TWIC updates. This will give you your own database of games (master level).
As for Openings (mainlines/sidelines):
I made a spreadsheet with all ECO codes (a vast majority of lines). I'm not sure where to find something similar. Search for comprehensive ECO list for starters.
1) Why
Best reason not to study openings. There are a some books that give general ideas/plans based on an opening's common structures. Even more books focus on specific openings in more detail. Here's a site with some structure based plans:
http://simplifychess.com/category/pawn-structures/
2) You're basically correct. Try to establish a repertoire. Here's an example of how:
https://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa02i07.htm
Read part 2 (link below 1st article)
3)You want to know how to build a plan. You need to know how to evaluate a position, and calculate in order to come up with a new idea or plan. Remember #1 above?
Here's a site to help you with a thinking process:
https://chessfox.com/10-day-chess-challenge-summary/10-day-chess-challenge-day-1/
4) When it's your move, pretend it's not. What would the other color love to play?
You can use an engine for this sometimes, but again...the WHY must be understood. Try looking at GM annotated games and/or a book on the specifics.
5) You can create a repertoire "tree" for this.
As for your goals. Yes, it will help you immensely to know exactly what you're trying to accomplish, why, and how you plan to do it.
That is a good bare-bones guide to help you develop an opening repertoire, among other things. Since you said you use chessable I'm sure you know of the books they sell there. So you have a good pick of opening repertoire books. You'll need this guide this guy gave you to choose the right books for the job. The useful thing about training openings is you will have 10-15 moves studied in basically all openings and you won't have to use much time in the beginning of the game to make your moves. The disadvantage of training openings is that it takes a long time,o to do, and the knowledge goes away when you stop training openings. However, if you spend a lot of your time studying tactics, pawn structures, and end games, you will usually retain most of that knowledge regardless if you use it or not. I actually know someone who went on to become a NM, but took a year break from chess, and forgot all his studied openings. So when he got back into the game, he had to figure out a way to improve his game that didn't involve retraining all his lost opening knowledge, at least that is what he chose to do, because he didn't want to keep retraining. I'm not gonna lie I train openings in chessable myself, just letting you know that when you train openings, you have to keep doing it, else the knowledge goes away, unlike training other areas of chess...
Let me tell you something, it takes me 2-3 hours just to go through one chapter of an opening book on chessable. That's just one chapter! Just imagine how long it will take to do the whole book. It's a lot of work. I don't even know how people can keep up with the spaced repetition on chessable. Even on one tactics books, which is over a thousand variations longs, takes me the space of one month to complete by doing just 10-80 tactics a day. On days where I come across a lot that I know I do more. On days I do a lot that I don't know I do less. IM David Preuss said that you can only remember 3 new patterns a day. It could be 5 for smart people, but usually, it's 3. I figure if it's patterns that you know already you can do a lot because you know them already. So what I am saying is that I find it totally impossible to keep up with the spaced repetition. I can't imagine anyone doing it, even for just one book. Most people have jobs. They can't spend over 8 hours a day on the computer clicking their mouse, and on top of that, play chess, do daily chess.com tactics, etc. A more practical approach would be to do them at your own pace as I do.
I can tell you from personal experience that studying openings hasn't helped me very much, and when it does, at the end of the day, the thing that helps the most is learning to take your time to calculate variables. I lost a game in a tournament where I had a great opening advantage, but I let it slip, and later lost a pawn because I neglected to take time to see what the best course of action was, let alone even question exactly what he was threatening with his last move. Learning how to do that skill will help you a lot more than studying openings, as that guy, who knew a lot less about the opening we played, won the game.
But yeah I told this story that I am about to tell you a long before, a long time ago, I started playing chess and I was probably below 900 rating by today's standards, and I knew nothing about the opening but that e4 was a good choice for white, so that's what I played. As black, I played random stuff, stuff that I do not care to revisit here at this time. The point is that we all start off not knowing much about the opening as well as all other parts of the game because we are beginners at first. Learning just the opening might help you know how to get a good game in the beginning if your opponent plays book moves, which doesn't generally happen, especially at the lower levels, however, if all you do is study openings then you will lose games like I did in my 2nd tournament where I had an advantage in the opening but lost later because I did not learn the skill of always considering the threats and consequences behind the move my opponent makes in a long game setting.
on chess.com type in the search, pawn structure 101, and there you will find a ton of videos on pawn structure. I'm not sure if you have a diamond membership, but those videos are based on the book, pawn structure chess, if you make it through the video course you should get the book to and review those games too.
Find a good endgame book. Silman made a good one but I don't know if it will be good for your level I actually didn't bother to check your rating and won't bother now either LOL.
All these are good resources to have, but it's a lot of work to really implement these resources. Chess takes a lot of time. Are you ready for that commitment? Do you even want to commit to this amount of work? Those are the questions you really need answers to. You're never going to make much money off chess, so there has to be something else you have to get from it. Find out what that is.
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