Seirawan and Jennifer Shahade had a brief debate about the question of studying openings

I guess it depends on what he means by comprehensive... While Yasser is the expert here, I get the feeling that Yasser tends to work with kids who are pretty exceptional and well coached so by the time they get to 1400 they're ridiculously underrated anyway. Jen I think works with more average folks. But ok I'm just guessing.

Yasser said that when playing Black you should have at least two different defenses to both 1.e4 and 1. d4.
In the 1400s!

There is a big misunderstanding. 

Why does everyone (patzers) think that studying openings is the same as memorizing openings? Studying openings is very far from that crap, at least correctly studying openings is far away from that. Should you learn the typical plans, pawn structures, tactical motifs, defensive resources and endgames that arise from an opening? Yes you should, does not matter if you are 600 or 2600 it will benefit you. Do you need to memorize lines? No, that is what everyone thinks when someone says "studying opening theory" and is crap.

Look at Ponzetto´s "Mastering the King´s Indian", that right there is kind of the way you should study openings or opening theory, however you want to name it.

Those are just my 2 cents on the matter, whenever I talked about studying opening theory with stronger players (FM and above) that is what they think when someone tells them "studying openigs" or "studying opening theory". 

Yasser is correct. Studying openings relatively early in your development (like #5's comments) will help you avoid common mistakes that happen over and over at the lower levels.  Sadly, many players would rather struggle through hours of bad positions trying to figure out how to save it rather than 5-15 minutes of easy study.  I knew many 1300-1400 rated players who could play and win/draw against higher rated people because they studied. 

The best time to study is when you ask "Should I study the opening/s." Answer in your gut is yes.

There is an advantage to having one set of openings you use and a game plan for what you intend to do with those openings at any OTB rating above 1000.

I coached a high school chess club/team and at one point in the '90's when it had been out of favor for 60 years, we were playing the Bishop's Opening to excess because the only teams we feared were those with Eastern European immigrants who had a big edge in opening knowledge.  Being familiar with aiming the Bishop at f7, playing an early f4 and working for a pawn storm of the usually K-side castled Black King, even players around 1000 had a plan to use.

I agree with Yasser. I think even for rank beginners you've got to know the set moves of at least a few openings and defenses to be able to enjoy the game or you'll get hammered early every time. Otherwise you'll spend much valuable time trying to calculate, experiment and be unable to get to a decent middle game when the opening moves have already been calculated for you. I also think it's important to have at least a little end game theory and learn to release the power of the king. Yes, the principles are good and necessary to understand but there's many ways the principles can fail you, or you can fail to see which principles are at work for a given position.

It depends on the player, actually. Some players with similar ratings would benefit from studying openings earlier than others.

My lowest estimate would be when you stop making simple 2-3 move, unprovoked blunders at least once every game or two games. That's considerably above 1400 rating, though, it's at least 1600-1700.

Exactly.

I asked a GM for advice on how to study an opening.

He said use resources online to get modern games of top GMs. Play over a few of them every day until you've seen a few hundred games.

Shh dude, dont tell them the truth, I also want to write Silman Articles and go millionare.

Bronstein, win a few major tourneys like the national championship or your country's largest open and write all the stuff you want.

I've heard this before and while it seems like a good idea I wonder how effective it truly is. Sure I suppose I would notice patterns and pick up some things. But can say a 1400 player really look at the games of 2500 players and just understand what's happening just by looking at games? How would he even know what's going on? What could a 1400 player possibly understand about the strategy of 2500 players? Will he just know that play on the dark-squares is important by looking at 100 games? What about 1000? How many games does it take for the wisdom of the ages to impart itself upon a 1400 player that he might understand the games of Kasparov?

I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea but I think the usefulness of this approach is overstated and probably more useful for stronger players that can somewhat wrap their head around these complicated ideas.

I mean you certainly wouldn't be expected to gain mastery of anything else by just watching someone else do it. You would seek out a teacher that could point out important things to you. Sure you might have some ideas from the positions you watch alone but you'd also have all kinds of misunderstandings and bad habits that you might never even notice until someone pointed it out to you.

The same could be said for memorization right? You don't need to understand why the moves are good in order to play them in the opening phase.

Then in the middlegame you don't need to fully understand it, but you should realize typical piece placement and general plans (like which side of the board they seek play on) and how they do it (mainly with pieces, or pawns, or both?)

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But I agree the higher rated a person is, the more they would get out of this. And if a person is totally confused it's both frustrating and not so effective. Much needed would be a basic explanation of the logic of the opening like "black is playing for the d5 pawn break" or something like this.

But anyway, I still think it would be time well spent. Just don't get caught up in "I don't understand" stuff. Only do a few games a day, and only 5 or 10 minutes per game. It's meant to have a cumulative effect. And yes, in art, sports, and music, you can learn a lot through watching or listening to highly skilled performers.

As urk pointed out, actually the debate between Yasser and Jen was not whether to study openings, but whether to study multiple openings (i.e. learn the French *and* Sicilian, e4 *and* c4, etc). Yasser though this appropriate for 1400+ whereas Jennifer thought it was something for 2000+.

I think Yasser's point was that learning different methods of opening the game could expose you to a wider variety of strategies and positional situations than if you play the same types of games all the time. He quoted Kasparov to support this, saying something to the effect of, to get stronger at chess, play new openings.

Just played against 1600+ USCF rated classic player in a rapid game... Well he knew his opening very well and was a pawn up very good one... then i started to care actually and outplayed him completely. Clearly his middle game and specially ending was terrible.

Then a friend and his opponent started to talk about about the opening what  should have been played this and that then this and if this it goes that way... then he ask him did he saw it's checkmate (5 moves earlier in their middle game..) no reply..

You could memorize few moves here and there on this and that opening, just not to be without knowledge if you ever happens to to play this opening or to transpose to it..

You can start to understand patterns, ideas and stuff in specific oppening you play.. but only after you completely master the hanging pieces (to be able to spot yours and opponents ones) to no longer blunder checkmates, no longer give check or move a piece without reason or at least 2-3 moves checking if its okay, master visualization, evaluation ... You should be able to convert winning endgames or draw some.. then only then start serious study about openings - Maybe around 1800.

Did you know with almost no opening knowledge - 1.d4 Bf4 e3 etc LONDON system against almost anyting... you can go 1800-2000 FIDE OTB no problem. Just have sharp tactical eye, attacking skills ,endgame skills and there you go.

I play one system against everything with black. I'm a 2100. Holy hell.

Yeah, I wonder how many 1400 players Yasser has coached 1 on 1 recently

I know he might show a GM game to a classroom full of kids, but that's not really the same.

I "know" multiple defenses to 1.e4 and 1.d4 (I'm sure we all do), but I can play one clearly better than I can play the others (my main response, of course). 

I think that's not unreasonable to briefly look at multiple responses, but to learn them in depth is too much for a 1400. 

However, it's mainly about playing skills. 

I'm playing in multiple thematic/pre-determined opening tournaments, and the one I'm doing exceptionally well in right now is the "Petrov's Defense", where I'm just winning games easily and smoothly. I've never played the 5.d4 variation of the Petroff as either color in a single game in my life until now.