Understanding open/closed positions

Whenever I watch videos on improving chess, the streamer will occasionally say things like "okay he's attacking the kingside, so you want to open up the center" or "okay this is closed position so you'll probably want to do this..."   where can I learn more about these 'rules'? I'm not even 100% sure what open/closed position means and googling these terms isn't turning up a whole lot. 

Thanks in advance! 

Open and closed positions refers to the center. A closed center is one where the center pawns are locked together. An example: 

Opening up the center entails making pawn exchanges in the center. A fully open center would look like this: 

The book I use is "The middlegame static features" by Max Euwe and Hans Kramer. I tried "Pawn structure chess" by Andrew Soltis but couldn't get into it. After the game is over I will have a look at the pawns after the opening and try to find the page in the book with the same formation and have a quick read.

Thanks for the reply - I'll check it out!

Thank you, that's very clear! 

hellooo!, i have a question, is italian game opening good? i always use it

I like the Italian it can lead to the classic centre with pawns on e4 and d4 when black trades his e5 pawn on d4 and white recaptures with the c3 pawn and then half the players playing black know to play d5 giving white an isolated pawn on d4 after exd5 and half dont know about d5 break and white uses his classic centre as a steam roller.

You can get something similar in the alapin sicilian when black messes up and plays 2.Nc6

Listen up, kids. Here is an example of the posts you need to be reading to answer all of your questions of why am I so bad, why can't I get any better, how come I always lose? This is specific advice which you can apply to your games right now. Thanks DFGH123. I'm going to have to go through this and absorb it.

Thank you Dejarik, as well.

And the rest of you as well. Heck, thank the whole darn world.