Is this thinking correct?

I am an instructor in several areas of expertise.  30 years as an air traffic control instructor, 35 as an advanced instructor pilot, past college instructor in advance computer programming, and a teacher of 5 string banjo.

If there is one thing I have expertise in it is the process of learning and teaching and learning and the mental processes in play in those processes.

I am a complete amateur and newbie at chess.  I have played for decades but have never applied myself to its study.  I have a internet rating of a dismal 860ish.  But now I am ready to put myself thru my own learning system for chess.  As I present this system, remember I have not yet applied this to myself yet and have no results to offer.  But I believe I may be right, at least for me.

Please tell me if I am on the right track.

1.  The opening is the one thing every player must go thru in every game therefore it is critical to survive the opening to arrive to the middle game (no duh)

2.  It seems that and expertise in at least one good white openning and at least a good e4 and d4 black response system is necessary to survive the opening....along with a good study of necessary basic rules of tactics and theory for those openings.

3.  Assuming this gives good results and a high percentage of survivability into the middlegame the next area of knowledge necessary to survive the middlegame into the end game would be tactics, patterns, systematic visual scanning training, defense methods, etc., knowing that it may not be necessary to make it to the end game if you do well in the middlegame.

4.  End game studies.  Basic patterns.  The how-tos of standard end-game play.

Some of the physiological training needs to be scanning.  Scanning, and more Scanning.  Training the ability to recognize 1st and 2nd level threats, self-inflicted mistakes, discoveries, etc.

It seems to me that at my level of play my inexperience is my worst enemy, not so much of play theory but of stupid stuff....moving into threats, not seeing simple threats, leaving pieces unprotected, etc.  And therefore making a 200 point increase is a matter of first training not to give the 200 points away.  In other words, just cleaning up stupidity can add 200 points to start with.  If that is true, training to avoid being stupid is a big factor for knocking off the first 200 points of rust.

Am I on the right track here?

tex

I actually don't know anything about chess, but please, please, please, tell me about some of the best UFOs you ever encountered! Your resume spells UFO, to me

Excuse me, but what does that have to do with UFOs???? Please stay on topic.

Where do you think he learned to play the banjo?

On topic, it's important to note that opening expertise is not merely opening memorization

You dont understand.  I am having fun and I want to get better.  But what I do know from my training experience is that to get better at anything requires study and systematic targeted study which addresses specific issues is better than random study.  So I want to find out what fits that bill.

Actually "surviving" the opening is not so difficult - most important at your stage is not to run into an opening trap, and most opening traps are about attacking the f2 / f7 square with an uncastled king - if it's Scholar's Mate or a knight fork on queen and rook while the knight is protected by a bishop (the latter one is something I ran into extremely often). So be sure to castle early and watch out for threats of this square (and for all other threats too of course :)

Otherwise I'd think the best thing to do for you - beside actually playing - is the Tactics Trainer on this site. For starters I'd suggest that you don't pay too much attention to the time limit (which is rather short and makes good blitz training) and your TT rating, but try to solve the position in whatever time you need.

I wouldn't place equal weight on all the factors you are talking about.

A lot of your talk is about "surviving" this or that. I take that to mean you are having trouble losing material in those situations. That's pretty common. It means that tactics should be your absolute, No. 1 area of focus.

Overall I agree with you, but I think you are putting too much emphasis on openings and not enough on endgames.  I would say a knowledge of basic endgames is more important for beginners than opening knowledge.  Going up a rook in the middlegame and knowing that you should trade down when you have a material advantage don't really help an uber-beginner who doesn't know how to win a rook and king vs king endgame.  King and pawn vs king endgames are also pretty easy to learn and very important for all levels of play.

I agree about rote opening memorization.  I want to understand the ideas behind one opening and understand why this move is good here in response to that move there.

Ive have been studying the Colle for a while and seem to understand most of the first 6 or 7 levels deep of play and the why for several variations.  Not only that Im starting to see and understand the positional patterns of these first few levels and I think Im understanding the longer term strategy for each.

Then again, I liked the guitar and look at me now....a banjo picker.

I have had the very same experience/insight into learning...  "systematic targeted study" (exactly the right phrase imo) is very powerful.  It is particularly powerful for things like mastering an instrument which involve a physical and mental component.

I know you are on the right track -- in general -- about learning.

But, I have been much less successful at teaching myself chess than pretty much any other thing I've ever set my mind to. Maybe that's why i'm still at it! I've been unable to use what I know about sytematic targeted study effectively with chess.

I think you are on the wrong track with an initial focus on ways to "survive the opening" and get to the middlegame. 

A better initial focus would be to cover the various topic which fall under 'fundamental' chess. Basic opening middlegame and endgame play. Then my method would be to study positional chess/middlegame chess... learn from the middle and go out (the opening and ending).  Opening, middle and ending are to some degree artificial terms. Chess is the middlegame. Anything you know about the middlegame will be of value to the opening and the ending. Absolutely there are advanced, specialized things, to know about specific openings and endings... but a good general grasp of middle game chess will serve you well in general in openings and endings.

If you don't believe openings are really a type of middlegame, consider when a computer plays chess with the opening book "off" it is simply playing the opening as if it were a middlegame. A strong computer engine will play the opening very very competently this way.

The other thing to study is tactical patterns. Everyone has an opinion on the right way to do this. They're all wrong . 

Look up IM Dan Rensch's advice on how to train tactics, I think he's got it right.It's counter-intuitive but you don't really learn tactics efficiently by solving (and failing to solve) bazillions of tactical puzzles. The largest component in the learning is simply being shown the pattern. You can absorb new tactical patterns daily, but the amount you can absorb daily is fairly limited. Maybe three. Rensch believes, (if I understoody him correctly) that people who spend hours on the tactical trainer have generally stopped learning anything after the first 15 minutes.  

Good luck. I don't feel I've learned how to study chess effectively -- I'm happy to have been able to make progress at all -- I think it's a difficult enterprise, mastering chess. But it is certainly an enjoyable one so long as one has a good perspective.

With an 860 rating, endgame is much more important to learn than openings.  Opening strategy is about the best moves that might yield a pawn 40 or 50 moves later and whatnot.  There are so many  variations after a few moves anyway,  might play each one once in a lifetime the further out you go... and I guarantee that most people below 1200 don't know openings more than a couple of moves.  1500 and below there is usually one big blunder a game, and so the slight space advantages and subtleties gained in the opening are really of little value, as they usually end up not mattering.

My advice.. Spend NO time mmemorizing openings until you are 1200+. 

If you are 860, someone rated 1360 should be able to beat you with pretty much any 2 first moves, lets say 1. a3, 2. h3 (by the way, GM Karpov lost to 1. a3! once) Just start with very general stuff, and practice not leaving pieces hanging.

GLGL!

Fezzik's advice is excellent, as is JGP27Pyth's -- it's important to start out with generalized learning things such as what is checkmate (and the overkill mates), tactical motiffs and opening principals.

To the OP, your thinking is good, but I would point out (along with Fezzik's sentiment) that openings aren't so important.  It's not only practical, but necessary to understand opening ideas first before attempting to memorize moves.  Ideas like the center of the board and efficient development are key to every opening.

Also, there is something of a backwards-to-forwards approach to chess that makes sense.  How can you expect to play a good middlegame if you don't know any endgames?  How can you expect to play a decent opening with no idea how to play a middlgame?  It's akin to... beginning a car trip by starting the engine and pulling out into the street, only to realize you don't know where you're headed -- the first step is actually choosing a destination, then a rout, and lastly starting the car.

Which is Fezziks point in the king and pawn diagram.  Without knowing what are favorable and unfavorable positions to achieve, it's impossible to take steps in the right direction.  Now because you're going to be thrown into all 3 phases regardless of preparation, it is useful to learn some opening principals and general middlegame strategies in the beginning, but your first study in the book sense, should be with endgames.

You are also correct about the relative worth of 200 points at your level.  For a professional to gain 200 points takes a tremendous amount of work.  But as with many things, in the beginner a lot of progress can be made without as much required to get you there.  To scan the board and recognize the new threats after each of your opponent's moves 999 out of 1,000 times (consistency is a big deal in chess, 98% wont cut it) will gain you even more than 200 points.  Which brings us to another good tip for players starting out -- it's important to play a lot of games (and then look over them for a mistake you can learn from... even when you win).

The OP has 2 completed online games. He's quite a bit better than 860, IMO....

If you just play 1..c6/2...d5 as black and 1. d4 (quiet/exchange system) as white you'll get a solid position out of the opening, so that shouldn't be your primary concern really. Just try to learn general middlegame and endgame ideas, i.e. tactics first and then standard strategic concepts such as bad bishops/knight outposts/open files/passed pawns (lots of books on that).

The point of early tactics training isn't to create combinations. It's to avoid falling into them. Beginners will lose most of their games by hanging pieces and moving into simple, one-move tactics.

How is a beginnner supposed to understand extremely deep middlegame positions if they can't even see one move ahead?! Starting with endgames makes sense, but only because it begins to train the visualisation, makes it easier to scan for hung pieces, and introduces the concepts of pins and skewers. Trying to learn the middlegame while hanging pieces is a ridiculous idea.

I would start with basic check mates, how to win the game, then some basic endgames. Nothing like rook endgames, easy won endgames so the beginner know why it's important to not give up pawns and pices for nothing.

Then basic opening development so the beginner can start playing, and keep on playing for a long time, after that, easy tacticks.

 As a chess coach for several years, I have to say that I agree with Clouseau. I never introduce tactics at the very beginning, but after the players have a bit of experience.

I start with basic opening principles, so that the players can get through the opening mostly in decent shape (of course I don't teach theory or deep strategy yet). I tell them to play 1.e4 and show them something really basic like the Four Knights.

Then I tell them the importance of not giving away their pieces and have them practice not giving things away so easily.

After that, I teach them three basic mates (and only these three): K+Q+R/K+2R vs. K, K+Q vs. K, and K+R vs. K. That is all I teach about the endgame for a very long time.

Once they get the hang of all this, THEN I give a few lessons on basic tactics: pin, fork, back-rank mate, and skewer.

Next, is the "mindless" part: LOTS of practice of tactics puzzles with these themes (I like to use Chess School 1a, by Sergey Ivaschenko, because it starts really easy and gets progressively quite hard).

Then I start to work on openings (Ruy Lopez always for White, Hungarian Defense for Black) and I then spend a lot of time showing grandmaster games in various openings, explaining them slowly and carefully to my students.

It's an approach that has worked very well for my students.

Maybe there was a misunderstanding, that the openings and endgames you get into with a beginner are these must have basics (over-kill mates and opening principals) and not any "deep middlegame ideas" as clouseau runs to the other extreme.

The method outlined above it what I'd use.  If I were being paid though, and the kid was being forced into it by the parents, I'd work with more basic endgames even before tactics.  Such as winning a K+P with an extra pawn and then something like winning each type of basic endgame (RvR, BvB, NvN, etc) with an extra pawn when it is a winning position, and then how to draw in the drawn positions.  Something like this, while possibly quite boring to the student, will be invaluable basic knowledge and give a good mindset that you don't have to win with a trap, there are positional techniques as well.

Then throw tactics at them