Sicilian for 1200?

Problem is when most people, especially lower-rated players study openings, the vast majority of them just memorize moves and lines they will see maybe 3% of the times they play, when they should instead be trying to understand what said opening is trying to accomplish, what are the plans, strategies, optimal piece placement, common tactics in the position, reoccurring themes etc

Sorry, mistook you for that other person who said it was a waste of time before whatever arbitrary level he decided was important.

I would wholeheartedly agree with you, but that being said, there really aren't a lot of foolproof ways to improve your calculation other than just playing games and doing puzzles, but I would argue that puzzles aren't really improving your calculation skills as much as they are improving your pattern recognition. Analyzing your games doesn't improve calculation, it improves pattern recognition, board awareness, and recognizing things like weakness and potential tactical opportunities. Calculation is a horsepower thing, and it's hard to train that other than just by practicing.

Obviously if you just sit in a room all day memorizing openings you're not going to get any better than someone at basketball sitting in a room reading about basketball strategy, formations, plays, footwork, watching tape and the like. It helps, though, especially if you can put it into practice.

If only 2% of the games of a player are mainly decided by a superior or worse knowledge of opening theory (and the remaining 98% by other factors such as blunders, positional mistakes, lack of strategy etc.) it might be not the most efficient thing to spend 50% of your time memorising opening lines...

This makes the false assumption that the trade-off is one for one. You can spend an entire day doing puzzles and not improve your ability puzzle score one bit, but you can learn an entire line in a day easily. If you're facing an opponent in an OTB tournament and you study what they play and try to prepare for the lines they play, you'll be better off than studying puzzles all day, analyzing your own games, or just playing.

This is such a false dichotomy. How on earth do you just improve your ability to calculate or improve your board vision. I've worked with a coach and did everything that I was supposed to do to improve those, but it never helped a lot. A lot of that stuff is just as innate as being physically coordinated. You can practice practice practice shooting a basketball and get better, but you'll never be able to shoot like Stephen Curry. And don't tell me that it's physical, because it's not. Shooting a basketball, especially free throws, is largely mental. Shaq worked with the most talented experts ever but was never able to raise his free throw percentage much above 50%.

Just get better at calculating is just odd advice, if you think about it.

When I was trying to get over the 1600 rating, I kept playing without a trainer and not learning the openings. And when I went to a live tournament, I lost a lot of games without getting out of the mittelspiel. No, it wasn't a blunder of tactics, but ignorance of the openings themselves, the wrong plan and the wrong positional play.

After that I realised that my opponents on chess.com don't know the openings either. On the other hand, those who go to chess clubs (I don't) learn the openings and their plans. They may be weaker than me at positional chess, but they beat me at the expense of knowledge of openings.

At the moment, thanks to some action, I know my openings well and I very rarely lose in openings anymore. And I've even grown in ranking and level of play, just by learning my openings. Some might say: "And if your opponent rolls an option, what are you going to do? Sit and think?". Hell no, I already know the plan in advance and follow it without paying attention to my opponent's moves, to put it crudely. No, of course I make sure I don't yawn anything. But I don't care about the fact that my opponent has, you see, turned his back on an option. And even if my plan doesn't work out, I still know what to do and what other plan can be applied.

I hope you understand why, I am against those who believe that openings should not be taught at an early level.

And now about the choice of openings and variant. At the 1200 level, of course, no one knows any opening. Well maybe someone out there, but that's a big rarity. Sicilian defence is a complicated and multifaceted opening. And I don't think it is necessary to play the Dragon variant or Najdorf variant. I play a simple variation of 2...e6. Just for 1200 for now, because at 1200 it is difficult to play the same Najdorf variant or the Dragon variant. But 2...e6 can be played even if the opponent does not move d4, but moves d3. Here it is enough to know the plan for some basic moves, and play to your health.

For White, I honestly don't know which is better: e4, d4, c4. What's closer to your heart works here. That's what's closer or what you like best, that's what you can play. I'm closer to d4. I wouldn't mind trying c4 too someday. And then you can learn the theory...

Knowing an opening gives you confidence and saves your time while responding. You'd play a6-b5 against ruy lopez bishop without hesitation and without thinking 'am i overextending my queenside?'

When encounter french you'd know where the tension will be almost the entire game. 

Knowledge makes you prepared.

that being said, relying on a opening for your games may make you lazy. Like swimming in the charted waters all the time. You should look for challenges to improve your play.

My general approach to theories; know them.. know your enemies, be aware of their weapons. But dont be an opening junkie, improve your middlegame, master your endgames.

Well yes, preparing a specific opening line for an opponent might help in the first 10-15 moves of that particular game and maybe even makes you win effortlessly once in a while which is why it is so tempting. Improving just a tiny bit at tactics or at positional chess will help in every game in every part of the game and is therefore in my opinion more beneficial in the long run.

That said, I understand your point that everyone is different and that improving at tactics might have its limits for different people...

well said. but you dont need theory for this. opening principles are enough for a balanved transition to middlegame.

I still play it too. I think it's a very good move.

Why are you minus @ChesswithNickolay? Actually, he says exactly the right things!

Guys - no one is arguing "study openings to the exclusion of tactics, positional understanding, end games, etc."  so why do you keep making that straw man.  

Generally, when I look at openings I'm only going 5 - 10 moves max.  And yes, there's a little memorization at first (because it's, you know, an opening) and then you play it a couple of hundred times against all kinds of players, some who know the opening and play theory, some who don't, some who can challenge it well, and some who can't. and then, over time, you develop a DEEPER understanding of the opening and the theory.  You learn what works in situations, what doesn't work, how to adjust it to the reality of the board, how best to translate a positional advantage into a win downstream, etc. etc.

So if your assumption here is "OP wants to memorize ten moves that gives him a wild advantage against a player who doesn't know the opening and leave it at that" you are making wild, massive, completely incorrect assumptions what what I am doing.  

I was in the same position as you. I was 1150-1200 and wanted to learn the sicilian. It was a complete waste of time. No one played the moves I planned for. Remember that you are still a beginner at 1200, why are you learning the sicilian.

Because I enjoy it.  I've played 3 games with the Sicilian dragon set up and posted them all up thread.   So small sample size, but all three were pretty close to expected theory (with some deviations) - totally reasonable set up in my opinion.  I won all 3 games. . .so so far it's not a waste of time and I'm learning stuff.  

Why don't you focus on not making blunders first? You're gonna do 5 moves of theory, then hang your queen lmao

Knowing theory helps you indirectly with blunders as well, along with some rough middlegame plans. If you know that Rd1 is fine for instance, you will probably not hang your queen on that move.

Why are you making articles on how to improve lmao you're 1600

I will give you the answer even though that "lmao" stuff is plain disrespectful. I would advise you to speak with a bit more respect in the future if you expect to be respected yourself.

Because the average rating here is 800, and there are many things I can help beginners with.

My rating is better than 98% of people playing rapid on the site.

Have a nice day.

If I had to guess, I would say something shocking and unexpected like maybe he is trying to help 800s get to 1200s

FYI You're trying to sound like  you're better than people and know what you're talking about but in reality you just sound foolish