chess courses

Around 2010, IM John Watson wrote, "... For players with very limited experience, ... the Sicilian Defence ... normally leaves you with little room to manoeuvre and is best left until your positional skills develop. ... I'm still not excited about my students playing the Sicilian Defence at [the stage where they have a moderate level of experience and some opening competence], because it almost always means playing with less space and development, and in some cases with exotic and not particularly instructive pawn-structures. ... if you're taking the Sicilian up at [say, 1700 Elo and above], you should put in a lot of serious study time, as well as commit to playing it for a few years. ..."

For London, you might just want to try playing through some of the games in a book like First Steps the Colle and London Systems.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-understand-openings

Or you could just look at:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-perfect-opening-for-the-lazy-student

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-start-out-in-chess

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

At your level, there is no need to shell out money.  And PLEASE stay away from the Sicilian.

To be frank, they're probably not worth $10 much less $100.

And that's even if openings were the most important thing for you to study at the moment (they're not).

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5
2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key
3. Castle
4. Connect your rooks

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

The objective of development is about improving the value of your pieces by increasing the importance of their roles. Well-developed pieces have more fire-power than undeveloped pieces and they do more in helping you gain control.

Now we will look at 5 practical things you can do to help you achieve your development objective.

They are:

1. Give priority to your least active pieces.

• Which piece needs to be developed (which piece is the least active)
• Where should it go (where can its role be maximized)

2. Exchange your least active pieces for your opponent’s active pieces.
3. Restrict the development of your opponent’s pieces.
4. Neutralize your opponent’s best piece.
5. Secure strong squares for your pieces.

Don’t help your opponent develop.

There are 2 common mistakes whereby you will simply be helping your opponent to develop:

1. Making a weak threat that can easily be blocked
2. Making an exchange that helps your opponent to develop a piece

Pre Move Checklist:

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.
2. Look for forcing moves: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) as this will force you look at, and see the entire board.
3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.
4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.
5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

You are correct Sir...

Starting now, I will tell beginners what they what to hear, not what they need to hear.

To the OP:

Play the Sicilian, Benoni, Gruenfeld, and Ruy Lopez.

Study the games of Alekhine, and Tal.

Mainly?

Play nothing but bullet, blitz and rapid.

I see no reason to believe that kevinhaggins wants to hear that.

Go to chessable and study their.Any Tactics course and 100 endgames you must know. You can also find few free courses on all topics.