Openings

Hello everyone.  Im new to chess and seem to be progressing at a decent rate.  However, I felt like having no opening plan was holding me a little bit.  So, I picked one opening for white and black and saw a difference pretty quick.  My choices were The Catalin and Sicilian and I enjoy them a lot.

With that being said, in some games my opponent doesn’t follow any of the optimal lines.  I imagine this should result in an easy win.  But it often makes the position really complicated.  Is this natural when learning an opening?  Or should I recognize certain developments and switch strategies if I know it will create problems?  Thanks for any advice in advance!

Of course it is normal. This is why memorizing opening lines will not help you too much at this point.

All you need to do concerning openings is to slowly, gradually improve in the opening line of your choice. You decide what you play, learn 3-5 moves that constitute a variation, then play a game. Afterwards, during the analysis you check with the opening explorer and the engine if you made some terrible move. If you did, you make a different move next time.

At this point make sure you learn and implement opening principles. That is how you fight unusual moves by your opponents.

Thanks for the tips. I’ll make sure to study more opening principles rather than specific lines.

Follow opening principles!

control the center

develop your pieces

castle your king

No problem. It is still ok to learn ideas of the opening from some videos for instance and to look at some moves here and there, but pure memorization of some long lines will not be very useful.

If you wanna study an opening just pick one and stick with it for a while if you ask me. If you won't be allowed to play your opening just stick by your principles, and that will do.

Study tactics. Right now tactics matter most.

For sure my tactics are definitely lacking. I find it hard to place my pieces in ideal spots. Especially when my opponent is over aggressive early. I end up suffocating my pieces and not having any decisive threats to show for it.

When it comes to openings for sub 1000 players there is three things to focus on. 1. is the opening principles (that other have mentioned already). 2. Is tactics. Tactics are not just about winning material in chess. This is because they can help you control certain squares like the center. Even if you aren't threatening to win material directly. 3. Not blundering. Avoiding losing material will literally add a bunch of points to your rating. What should be your focus on mainly is 1. Tactics (this includes not blundering) 2. Endgame principles, overkill mates (you may know these already, but you need to be able to do them in time pressure), the basics of king and pawn endgames 3. Opening principles. 4. Learning the basics of strategy (the opening principles are actually based on these).

For learning specific openings it is best to pick one, and continue playing it consistently. Your two choices above are good openings although c5 may not work well against 1.d4. What is more important than learning specific lines in the opening is learning what you are trying to accomplish in the opening, and why this particular opening is doing it this way. This way you know what you are striving for. Hint it will fall into one or more of the opening principles or tactics.

When it comes to your question of if someone doesn't play the optimal lines then it should be an easy win? The answer to this is no that is not necessarily the case. Here is an example from an opening I play in response to e4 the French Defense:

In this example white has not played any of the optimal lines, and decided to play Bc4 which gets hit immediately with d5 from black. This causes that exchange of pawns, and then the retreat of the Bishop. While this is not good for white, and in fact the win rate for black is pretty good, but there is only one pawn off the board, and white has at least developed a bishop, and moved a center pawn (which is a developing move). Black has gained some tempo and should get a good position out of the opening because of it. The reality of it being easy to win this position is not the case. There is only one pawn off the board, and no major blunders have been made. This means that the game will have to still be one the same way that every other game is won. By outplaying your opponent.

Hope this helps:

Here is some resources that will help you:

Opening Principles: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

Endgames:

Chess Vibes Endgame Course: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp7SLTJhX1u4rgJNaP2UOT0xyG3Y9QaJ2

Endgame Principles: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-endgames

Strategy:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/good-and-bad-pieces

https://www.chess.com/article/view/strong-and-weak-pawns

https://www.chess.com/article/view/try-your-hands-at-planning

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-evaluate-a-position

Chess Vibes tactics/strategy playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp7SLTJhX1u5MI2RJmP5CA1vEEl76-BzE

Tactics:

Chess tactics definitions: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics

Chess Vibes Blunder Check video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfmDBpbqMAI&t=1s

Thanks so much for the feedback everyone. I took everyone’s advice and went back to playing e4 exclusively. Doing so has let me focus on fundamentals and analyze the board rather than scratching my head trying to figure out how to force certain lines.

As a result I’m spotting development errors in my opponents and appear to have more control of the game flow. This community is awesome!

Works like charm

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