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Openings for 1000 and below

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travisforchess
I've been playing the Italian game for white. nimzo-indian for d4, and just general chess fundamentals for e4. I'm assuming as my ELO increases, I'll naturally learn new openings. How do I know what openings are worth learning? I'd like to dive into one white opening and two black openings and become very strong in them. Am I looking at this the right way?
GabeMiami10

At the moment you're fine with your opening knowledge. Until 1200 you can survive on principals and what you have. Until then tho... I suggest Discovering Chess openings by John emms. great underrated book, and helped me a lot

travisforchess

@GabeMiami10 Thanks again!

SUPERBATMAN9

I organize masterclass on sunday

magipi
travisforchess wrote:
 I'd like to dive into one white opening and two black openings and become very strong in them. Am I looking at this the right way?

If you'd like to do that, sure, go ahead.

But if you want to spend your time on something that's really useful, my advice is to forget openings. Study anything else, for example endgames. And tactics, tactics, tactics.

Quadation

alien gambit frfr

ArcherOpChess
Centre Game
Jade21Chess

The Reti Opening is very good but I prefer much more with King's Gambit and Queen's Gambit for an opening

Hoffmann713
travisforchess ha scritto:
I'm assuming as my ELO increases, I'll naturally learn new openings. 

I did the opposite : as I went on I gave less and less importance to openings. I've found the 2-3 that suit me ( that's the important thing ) and I always play those. Those who say not to give too much weight to openings are right, we are very far from the level at which they can begin to affect the result.

I spent some time on openings. From a practical point of view it was useless ; but I don't mind it, because it was pleasant to delve into the "Geography of Chess" ( as Averbakh calls them in his beginner's manual ). It helped get me hooked on the game.

ChessMasteryOfficial

Consider studying classical and well-established openings.

Zercs69

Italian is a very good choice as it has some good gambits in it (like Evans, possibly the strongest gambit in all chess), as well as it gives you easy development with low effort. Now you want to have a defense for both e4 and d4, for e4 I recommend Caro-Kann, easily the best choice, it is a little passive but its just super solid and relatively easy to play. Against d4 you can continue with Nimzo-Indian, altough I would advise to try Kings-Indian/Pirc, these are my main choices but you can always play what suits you the best.

King_Devzev

queens gambit got me 200 rating

i have example puzzles in my profile

AndrewZhenPro

do the fried liver my good man

tygxc

@1

"I've been playing the Italian game" ++ Good

"nimzo-indian for d4" ++ Good, but complicated.

"general chess fundamentals for e4" ++ Good

"as my ELO increases, I'll naturally learn new openings" ++ No

"How do I know what openings are worth learning?" ++ Just play and analyse your lost games. Stay away from openings with 'Gambit' in their name, except Queen's Gambit.

"I'd like to dive into one white opening and two black openings"
++ That is right: you need in decreasing order of importance:

  1. a defense for black against 1 e4, preferably 1 e4 e5
  2. a defense for black against 1 d4, you have your Nimzovich Indian Defense
  3. and an opening for white, you have your Italian
Spartan300E
Any other books worth recommending?
AngusByers

The Italian is a very good choice, and will serve you well no matter how strong you get. As others have pointed out, it branches into many different variations, from the very aggressive Evan's Gambit if you like wide open attacking games, all the way to closed positional set ups (4. d3 ... Guioco Pianissimo; the "very quiet game"). You'll find a lot of variety in your games by picking up different lines as you go.
Openings are fun to study, but as already mentioned, your time will be better spent studying endgames, learning the various mating patterns, practicing tactics, and learning some positional ideas (things like getting your Knights to good outpost squares; putting your pawns on the colour of your missing Bishop when one gets traded off so your pawns control the squares your traded Bishop used to - those sorts of things that may not have an immediate tactic but generally improve things for you).
When you do study an opening, though, don't just memorize the sequence of moves in the line. But focus on asking yourself "why is this move being made here?", and also, when you reach the end of a given line, spend a lot of time looking at the position you've reached. What plans can you make? What plan is your opponent going to be working on?
The problem, though, is that early on your opponent is unlikely to know the line as well as you do, so they will go "off book" before you reach the end of the 14-16 moves you've memorized! That's why middle game study is much more important early on because that's the purpose of the opening - to get you to a middle game position where you have good plans available, and where you know what your opponent's plans might be. And also because you need to be able to make plans from whatever position you are at when your opponent deviates from the "book moves".

Jade21Chess

Maybe London System or Italian Game is good for Intermediate Players?

Im_a_Crow

Nimzo is difficult. I suggest you to check out semi slav. Its easy and solid

Adithi_2011

Italian is good