How to avoid Opening Blunders?
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Sep 6, 2019
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#50
Getting better at chess is very simple.
Play lots of blitz/bullet. The number one mistake beginners make is they play too much slow chess. You can play 10 times as many blitz games as rapid games so your skill and knowledge will increase 10 times faster.
"... Sure, fast games are fine for practicing openings (not the most important part of the game for most players) and possibly developing decent board vision and tactical 'shots', but the kind of thinking it takes to plan, evaluate, play long endgames, and find deep combinations is just not possible in quick chess. … for serious improvement ... consistently play many slow games to practice good thinking habits. ... I know that a large percentage of my readers almost exclusively play on the internet - after all, you are reading this on the internet, right!? But there is a strong case for at least augmenting internet play with some OTB play, whether in a club or, better yet, a tournament. ... I would guess that players who have never played OTB usually gain 50-100 points of playing strength just from competing in their first long weekend tournament, assuming they play five or more rounds of very slow chess. ... Don't have two day? Try a one-day quad (a round-robin among four similarly rated players). … about 100 slow games a year is a reasonable foundation for ongoing improvement. ... Can't make 100? Then try for 60. If you only play three or fewer tournaments a year and do not play slow chess regularly at a club (or on-line, where G/90 and slower play is relatively rare), then do not be surprised that you are not really improving. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
Most chess players make several blunders in the first 10 moves. The solution is to study your preferred opening and practice it over and over. Unfortunately this is far easier said than done. One can play more games but that is like practicing golf without help. All you do is perfect a bad swing 
and not get better.
A chess coach is a solution, but an expensive one. I do recommend coaches for very new players to get started on how to play
videos on openings help and should be watched. I recommend new players first learn the queen pawn opening.
Videos on defenses are equally important
Tactics are good but don’t help you on openings
reviewing ones openings is very important unfortunately I find chess.com’s analysis of a game not the best to put it politely
But that still leaves the issue of how to practice. And it’s like golf. When one goes to practice one wants to do hundreds of correct repetitions. And when one makes a bad move or swing to get instance correct feedback.
You can practice against the computer but few give good feedback. And losing over and over without feedback is worthless .
A phone and tablet app that gives good feedback is Chess Pro. But it requires one to do several setting changes to find useful feedback.
A site I use and helped develop that lets you practice an opening over and over is www.chesspractice.com. We developed it initially to help the kids out at our elementary school and it just grew. It gives very good feedback on each move, showing multiple arrows to highlight best, very good, good and bad moves. Lots of information on different openings and defenses.
believe in yourself