New player - how to memorize openings.

I see a lot of advanced players referring to famous opening, endgame techniques, etc and I feel very overwhelmed trying to learn these. I'm having difficulty memorizing the moves to even simple opening variations. Does anyone have tips for how to memorize openings? Is this even important? Thanks.

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...

 

Pre Move Checklist:

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe. 

2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) 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 dont memorize openings, you learn, and understand the "why" behind the moves.

I see, this is very helpful, thank you.

Repeat, repeat repeat. You will rarely ever have to memorize an opening tho. Easier to remember what you studied if you understand why.

The openings go a certain way because they are typically viewed as the best moves. If you know why each move is the best then you should follow the opening sequence. However, if you don’t know the reasoning for each move then you won’t be able to get an advantage when your opponent deviates from the proper opening line and the whole memorization process ends up being pretty useless.

5 Habits That Help You Learn Openings

 

1. Understand the moves

As simple as the systems you choose to add to your repertoire may be, there is still some theory to go through. One way I have noticed to work in order to remember the moves is to try to understand why you are making that move and not another. In other words, understand the ideas in the position, both for you and for your opponent.

 

This way you’ll know what you want to achieve and what you want to keep your opponent from achieving. You’ll see that the right, theoretical moves will suddenly come easier to you.  Of course, this “trick” is almost impossible to apply to sharp lines with only moves.

 

2. Play through annotated games

Seeing many games gives you a wide chess understanding.

 

Try to include in your training not only games in the openings you play but various openings and pawn structures. Seeing how they are played and reading the explanations will help you over the board, in similar situations where you are out of the book.

 

Again, try to understand the ideas and how the players think in order to be able to imitate them in your own games.

 

3. Watch online games

It is important to be constantly connected to the latest games. Besides the fact that seeing many games is good for your chess in general, it allows you to stay connected to the latest trends and novelties in openings. You might come across a new, interesting idea in an opening you play that is worth analyzing and including in your repertoire.

 

4. Study the main pawn structures

This habit helps again with your chess in general – you will know what kind of plans to choose, which pieces to keep and which to exchange and how to ideally place them.

 

How can this help your opening?

 

It also gives you an overall understanding of the opening; by knowing more than one plan you will be able to adapt better to any changes your opponent might come up with and find the right continuation.

 

5. Read chess literature

Most model games are played by classics; therefore it is very important you study them and if the games have commentaries, even better. Playing through long analyses is not the point in this case; choose written annotations where the authors explain the process of thinking and the ideas in the positions.

 

As you can see, most of the tips mentioned above have to do with improving your overall chess understanding; we believe that this will help you in every aspect of the game. We also believe that this type of training is more useful for a player with limited time for studying chess than trying to memorize a great amount of theory by heart.

This n word is OG he knows what he is talking about

My perspective on this is that learning / memorization comes naturally over time. Trying to force it often ruins the experience for me.

This is why i love using chessable.com for openings.

"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/learning-an-opening-to-memorize-or-understand
https://www.chess.com/article/view/3-ways-to-learn-new-openings
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-understand-openings
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9033.pdf
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/vincent-moret/
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7652.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... Once you identify an opening you really like and wish to learn in more depth, then should you pick up a book on a particular opening or variation. Start with ones that explain the opening variations and are not just meant for advanced players. ..." - Dan Heisman (2001)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140626180930/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman06.pdf
"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... If the book contains illustrative games, it is worth playing these over first ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
"... For inexperienced players, I think the model that bases opening discussions on more or less complete games that are fully annotated, though with a main focus on the opening and early middlegame, is the ideal. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)
"... Everyman Chess has started a new series aimed at those who want to understand the basics of an opening, i.e., the not-yet-so-strong players. ... I imagine [there] will be a long series based on the premise of bringing the basic ideas of an opening to the reader through plenty of introductory text, game annotations, hints, plans and much more. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627055734/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen38.pdf
"The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)
"... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ... It is especially critical not to continually fall into opening traps – or even lines that result in difficult positions ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627062646/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman81.pdf

Some rather strong people will tell you they don’t learn openings, and that you should also not learn openings.

You have to know that although these players probably did not spend much time learning openings with books they know nevertheless a lot about openings.

They learn constantly by analysing games with engines.

Or by watching other games.

Or by discussing and analysing with friends.

If you want to make progress in chess you should know something about how to play the first 4 or 5 moves in the game.

It is up to you how to do this.

I suggest you to learn with a basic book on opening.

You have to slowly build up a basic repertoire with black and white.

Learning openings is a mix of understanding and memorising.

It is difficult to memorise things that you don’t understand.

I suggest you to use spaced repetition when studying openings (google it).

Chessable.com offers nice books on openings, endgames and tactics which can be learned by spaced repetition.

Important is not to spend all available time studying openings.

Better is to divide your time between learning tactics, openings and basic endgames.

In Chessable you can also ask other people (students or authors) if you don’t understand the reason of a move. I have almost daily contact there with IMs and even GMs explaining me the idea behind a move. How cool is this?

Just to tell you: All moves in chess have a reason. Good players almost never only play a move because it is their turn to play.

The better you play, the more you will play moves with a certain purpose. Good players often try to attack something, or defend something, or prepare an attack, or to prevent an attack.

This battle begin already in the opening.

Good luck!

you can try this video chess openings

https://youtu.be/I7oxBA_QFEw

For new players, it is better to learn patterns and tactics (fork, pins, skewers...). You will play with begginers player who wont follow any "theorical" opening.

"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)
"The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)
"... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ... It is especially critical not to continually fall into opening traps – or even lines that result in difficult positions ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627062646/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman81.pdf

Is anyone advocating that a blunder problem be ignored? Is this the sort of problem where improvement might be gradual?

Is playable a yes-or-no thing or a matter of degree?

"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

"... Openings don't help you improve skills and with no skills , they are practically worthless. They will offer you some wins or some good results against equally skilless players ..." - DeidreSkye

And perhaps some ability to lose less often against an opponent with some opening knowledge?