I’m new to playing chess. I’m an older guy and the memory isn’t what it used to be (it’s a good day when I remember to put on pants lol). Seriously, memorizing a bunch of openings isn’t going to work for me. I’ve picked a couple of openings to learn for both white and black and I’ve been reading Chernev’s Logical Chess looking at these openings not so much to learn the opening but to understand the reason behind the moves in the opening. Doing that has really helped me to better understand opening principles. I’ve heard many coaches say not to bother learning a bunch of openings, at the beginning at least, but to learn sound opening principles. That’s what I’m doing.
Sounds like a solid approach. My suspicion is (I don't have the personal experience to say for certain this is true, but it seems like it to me) that at the very high end, memorizing openings is more about saving calculation time and being able to make the right move quickly, since both players, absent knowledge of a particular opening, are still likely to stick to reliable moves, they'll just take longer doing it.
i made this just for you senpai.
sure