Need help understanding how to create a repertoire and my own database

OK, you've proved your point. But imo, I still do believe openings have an impact, on the game, even if its little. 

I would say you are correct to a certain extent.  If someone has gone to the trouble to know....and I mean really know an opening, all its lines, all its variations, and all of its sub-variations.  Ok...we know that isn't gong to happen unless you're a GM.  What people do is memorize moves with no basic understanding of the "why" behind those moves.  And when the opponent doesnt play a "book" move all your "preparation" goes out the window.  I peaked as a A player and never lost a game due to openings.  I know people that are Expert class player and they say that even at that level, blunders and missed tactics decide their games.

But if people want to waste time on openings that is their choice.  Just dont be surprised when your improvement goes slowly. 

Now if you find openings you like to play.  And that should be based on nothing but getting to middle games you're comfortable playing.  And not because your favorite GM plays them or because you think they are "aggressive" or "tactical".  All you need to have is a basic understanding of "why" the pieces and pawns go where they go. 

Blindly memorizing moves without understanding the "why" behind the moves does nothing to improve your chess game. 

Just my .02

But that’s exactly what I’m saying lol! The whole reason I want to create a repertoire is so I can get into middle game positions I’m comfortable with, not playing moves without a clear plan. 

What are you even talking about? I used to play openings before without knowing what any of the plans were, and it led me into worse positions. Imagine if I studied the openings, I would have KNOWN what my objectives were.

Because many GMs even give advice that you want to pick variations that lead to middle games you’re comfortable with. I never did this and it caused me to go into positions I was not comfortable with out of the opening. I am a more positional player. Let’s say a positional player doesn’t know an opening very well, and plays any variation. He could easily end up in a very sharp tactical position and lose to a tactic.

Also playing against an engine doesn’t prove anything. Obviously engines are better than ANY humans. If Stockfish was playing against another engine with similar strength and was in a much worse position 8 moves into the game then it would most likely lose. But with a human? Of course it’s gonna win because it’s an engine! 

And I’m not talking about playing a bad opening, I meant playing a good opening like Sicilian but not understanding the position and then playing in accurate moves

There are people saying I shouldn’t use books to study openings, and only use databases. What’s your opinion? Also how often do you think I should study my openings? Once a week? Do you recommend using BOTH a GM database and repertoire books?

#25

"Let’s say a positional player doesn’t know an opening very well, and plays any variation. He could easily end up in a very sharp tactical position and lose to a tactic."

No, I gave you a famous counterexample: white was a positional player, black was a tactical player, the positional player did not study any openings as he thought that was not worth the effort, the tactical player had prepared his novelty 8...d5 and studied it secretly for years.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095025

"Also playing against an engine doesn’t prove anything." ++ Yes, it does: it proves that middlegame tactics decide a chess game and not the opening.

"And I’m not talking about playing a bad opening, I meant playing a good opening like Sicilian but not understanding the position and then playing in accurate moves" ++ If the engine can defeat you with a bad opening, the you should be able to defeat humans with a good opening. Not because of the opening, but because of middlegame tactics.

I like books because they explain moves and ideas. Opening theory sometimes changes but not all variations change, so most parts of the book are still useful.

A GM Database doesn't explain the moves and only shows you moves that were played in games. A good book also analyzes some inaccurate moves (that were never played by GMs but your opponents could play them) and explain you how to take advantage.

So in my opinion it's useful to use both together.

I usually take a book (or video) and put the important variations in the chessbase software. While I make the moves, I can always see the GM database. So if I don't like a book recommendation, I can look for alternatives.

Once I saved my variations, I occasionally repeat them with the "replay training" feature.

How often should you study? If you study only one day per week, it will take very long to build a full repertoire. If you study 3-4 days per week, you will finish faster. So I'd prefer to focus on openings for some weeks. Once you finished an opening, you only need to repeat it occasionally or before tournament games.

Well see what punter said below. He’s a 2400 player and says to study openings 3-4 days per week. He’s also more experienced than you 

I think there is no correct number how many days you should study. It depends how deep you want to study openings.

But when you start building your reportoire, I think it makes sense to focus mainly on openings for some weeks. Ideally you should try to have a basic repertoire against the most important variations until your next big tournament.  After that it's okay to study only 1 day per week. 

And you can always prepare right before your next game. Just look at the database to see what opening your next opponent plays and find a good variation against his repertoire.

I'd also recommend you two books. They are not directly about opening theory but still very useful

Dvoretsky & Yusupov - Secrets of Opening preparation (School of Future Champions)

Flores Rios - Chess Structures. It covers all common pawn structures and is very helpful to understand the middlegames plans in the positions that arise from your openings.

And if possible, try to get advice from a coach that has experience in working with junior players. You are talented and the right advice can make the difference whether you will become an IM or not.

Thanks for the advice I had already heard that Dvoretsky’s books and Yusupov’s books are important so I will be reading some of them  

Just get chessable course

Which chessable course? Are they any good and don’t they cost money?

ur 2100 ECF while playing chess for only three years? thats rly good progress

You are the only 2100 I have encountered that does not have an opening repertoire. You should be very talented.

It just probably means I play well in the middle games and endgames.

I think if I had ChessBase before I would have created one easily 

That is talent. I cannot imagine having no opening repertoire and how to drive positions to middlegames that I like. Or positions to familiatize. I also do what @SlumChessHustler do. And of course I also train middle and endgames.

Do you think playing blitz games everyday will slow down your improvement? When I do, I feel like I get worse at blitz the more I play and my rating goes down dramatically. And for some reason after a few games I feel like I come up with less ideas after the opening. In other words sometimes I feel like I’m restricted to playing one certain move all the time in the late stage of the opening and not flexible as I want to be. I see titled players on chess.com 2600+ blitz playing side line variations in every game instead of the really normal looking variations and it helps because their opponent prefers to play against the main lines. For example an early h4.

I think Rapid is more useful for improvement.

Not as many strong players play online rapid. On my account I don’t use anymore I had 2300 rapid rating and only kept getting 2100 rated players when I wanted to play against 2300s. And lots of players above that rating were using an engine because it’s much easier to in rapid