Questions from a beginner

Hi. I've been playing chess for a week or two (~1200 on lichess.com) and I have a few questions not answered in the (great) FAQ.

At what point is it necessary to learn openings? Mos https://19216801.onl/ tly I just try to develop pieces and control the center without a specific plan - is this OK?
What are the endgames I should know? I currently know K+Q, K+R and R+R. What are the most common, and where's the best pla ce to learn them?
What is a good Elo goal to aim for if I'm playing and doing tactics for 1/2 - 1 hour per day?
Thanks.

Ask 100 people, you'll get 100 opinions, but ok, here's mine

To improve efficiently it's best to not have any area be much weaker than the others (opening, tactics, strategy, endgame).

Opening study is a common pitfall for new players. They spend a lot of time with openings and it doesn't improve their results. Because of this the typical advice is to "ignore" openings, but that's not quite right. Learning a few moves of the main lines you play is useful. Learning a main idea of a typical opening position is useful. Reviewing your games against an opening database is useful. Looking at GM games in openings you're interested in (at the rate of 5-10 minutes per game, 1 or 2 games a day) is useful.

In contrast, getting a book or online opening repertoire thing, and memorizing dozens of lines, 10+ moves deep, is a complete waste of time for new players.

Yes.

For reference, the (extremely simplified) flow of a game goes development -> pawn break -> infiltration -> win material / checkmate.

Forming a reasonable plan in an unfamiliar position isn't possible until you've played and studied quite a bit... as in years. Mostly what you'll want to do is learn fundamental ideas for a given opening or pawn structure. Then when faced with an unknown position, you'll use your general knowledge as a sort of scaffolding to build your plan e.g. "this is like a Sicilian except X is different, so I'll use the typical plan but modified to account for X." But yeah, getting to this point takes a long time. Until then some positions will simply be a mystery to you. In that case do your best to quickly finish opening development and not give away pieces for free and you'll be doing fine most of the time.

That's a good start. After that I'd say it's most useful to learn the principles behind winning a few basic king and pawn endgames. The basic plan to win the position below is must know material.

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The idea of decoying defenders to gain an advantage in another area is found in multiple ways and in all sorts of positions. Just something to keep in mind. Also google "square of the pawn"

I don't know the best place to learn basic endgames. I'd say a book, but people like online stuff these days.

Rating depends on both the website and time control. 1200 lichess is not 1200 chess.com. 1200 rapid is not 1200 blitz, etc.

I'd say... aim for 200 points more than whatever your rating is after your first 100 games. That's not easy, but it's certainly an achievable goal. If you still like chess after that you can set another goal.

As for a more advanced goal, I'd make it more performance oriented and say  get to a level where you're almost never giving away pieces or pawns for free, and you're almost always taking your opponent's pieces or pawns for free when a blunder gives you the opportunity. Even a beginner can avoid giving away pieces on some moves, but it typically takes people a lot of practice (sometimes years) before it's nearly 100% of moves in 100% of games (both punishing your opponent's simple blunders and avoiding making your own). Be sure the time controls you play are long enough that you can start forming these good calculation habits

#1
"At what point is it necessary to learn openings?" ++ After you become a grandmaster
"Mostly I just try to develop pieces and control the center without a specific plan"
++ Develop pieces and control the center is OK. Make up a specific plan after you see how your opponent plays.
"What are the endgames I should know?"
++ The more the better. You should know the 5 basic checkmates KQ vs. K, KR vs. K, KBB vs. K, KBN vs. K, KNN vs. KP and also KP vs. K.
"What are the most common" Most common are rook endgames. Study KRP vs. KR
"where's the best place to learn them?"
++ Endgame table bases tell you the exact play in all endgames up to 7 men
"What is a good Elo goal to aim for"
++ Do not worry about rating, try to play better and rating will follow
"I'm playing and doing tactics for 1/2 - 1 hour per day?" ++ That is good.

I think that learning openings is very important. You should have at least two for each color, against e4 and d4 as black, and see what suits you best as white. This is the experimental part, where you just try to see which opening is best for you, and then when you find one or two, study it in depth. As you play more games, you should get a (very) basic plan to defend against the most common openings you have been seeing.

I think its good to learn a few basic openings just for some repertoire. however I mostly recommend learning openings so that you have a good understanding of how to counter and defend against them. I would not stress if you know less openings than someone else though. In my opinion, openings have a bit too much focus on them in the chess community.

Puzzles and Chess.com lessons are great ways to learn and improve. Another great resource is aimchess, a free website that has personalized drills, tactics, stats, lessons, training exercises, and a ton more cool stuff. https://www.aimchess.com/i/DxgxkzXdFx8P63gXizYcbq

Those are great options for beginners, learning endgames is about knowing the principles of endgame strategy and not as much specific combinations.

The biggest mistake of beginners is trying to get better ratings. work on your tactics, endgames, don't blunder, and you'll get results.

First of all, whatever you do, don't try to memorize lines for now. The way you "learn" about openings on novice and intermediate level is that you decide what variation do you wish to play.

Let's say that You start with 1.e4 and your opponent responds with 1.e5. Let's say that you want to play Ruy Lopez. You just learn that Ruy Lopez is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5. So this is the only think you need to know.

You play a game, look at it afterwards, perhaps you've played something bad on move 5 or 6 that losses a pawn. You learn from it and improve.

Perhaps you look at the database after the game as well, but not to memorize, just to see what were your possibilities. You will play more games and you will improve your knowledge of that position.

After a while, after you get better, you will naturally remember 5 or 6 moves without even trying it. You might pick up some common plans of the opening you play...

After some time, you can look at some master games in the variation you play. In the end, if you get to some more advanced level, you might even want to buy something like ChessBase and try to memorize some moves, but that comes last as it is really not that important most of the time. On top of that, if you get to let's say 1 800, 1 900 FIDE or whatever, you will probably be better at memorizing stuff because you will know the purpose behind a certain move and it will come more naturally.

The same goes for any other move black plays. Perhaps he will not play 2. ...Nc6 but Nf6. You will play and improve. Perhaps he will play 1. ...c5 and so on.

As for the endgames, you should know how to checkmate with a lone queen, with a lone rook and with 2 rooks. That is something every novice player should learn as soon as possible.

Checkmating with 2 bishops and bishop + knight checkmate is not that common, so they are not super important. 2 bishops is easier to master and you will eventually learn both (I still don't know B+K checkmate), and 2 bishops I learn then forget and so on... because I never get them in my games. You should master the opposition and know how to play king and pawn up/down endgames (with and without rooks).

Where to learn endgames. Well, I would look some videos on YouTube at least - thinks like opposition, Philidor and Lucena for sure... As for practice, you can practice here - some endgame stuff is free of charge, some is not, I am not sure which ones are free which are not.

There is some free chess endgame apps online like this one:

https://chess-endgame-trainer.firebaseapp.com/home

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond