learn a simple forcing opening such as the colle. you wont get much out of the opening against stronger players that know what they are doing. However, you won't get run over either. Your mission is to survive to the middle game and start swapping pieces every chance you get.
the closer you get to the endgame, the weaker and weaker the vast majority of your opponents will become. It is absolutely humorous sometimes to see how players that know their openings and are decent at tactics literally fall apart in the endgame.
Oh, and after you have spent enough time learning that forcing opening well enough to survive, then start studying endings a lot. YOU WILL SEE YOUR RATING INCREASE
Learning openings well enough to survive is too weak. You must study them harder, to win, with that objective in mind!
This has been discussed to DEATH, soooooooo....I will chip in my .02
Start with the endgame first.
Dont remember who said it:
"A mistake in the opening you can recover from. A mistake in the middlegame will hurt you. A mistake in the endgame will kill you"
Yes, but by seriously studying the openings first you’ll benefit much more. You are beginning to calculate many moves ahead, for instance, especially when you can recite opening lines for hours, on memory alone. Then, when you are faced with endings, you find it much simpler to cover most variants.
Also, by studying openings you learn strategies, tactics, at the most complex level, understanding the most fundamental ideas of making progress in the most complex situations.
Memorising opening lines won't help you get better , in either strategy or calculation. This is well known for decades.
Even understanding openings moves won't help at all your calculation or your middlegame understanding.
As for "when you are faced with endings, you find it much simpler to cover most variants" , that was a good laugh indeed.
You obviously never studied endgame and you have no idea how difficult it is.
You never studied openings perhaps, and you have no idea how difficult that is...Obviously, if you have less pieces on the board calculation becomes easier, you don’t have to be a genius to see that. So getting good at calculation with most pieces on board pays off when less pieces are present, in a much less complex situation. The lack of logic can, indeed, produce ‘a good laugh’.
I wasn’t promoting memorization alone, but the one coming as a result of understanding the ideas behind, which is chess in all its splendor. Jumping to conclusions just to make a point is easy.
As a result of a diligent study of various positions, memorization happens as a natural next step—that is if one has enough grey matter. If not, playing chess at a decent level is not possible.
Finally, if one doesn’t know their openings in great detail, they won’t make it to the ending. So they are preparing for a phase of the game they won’t make it into...
Endgames are harder than they seem. Although you can calculate further ahead in an endgame, even grand masters make mistakes Quite commonly. Here's a recent example.
move 55 Kc6?? is a game losing mistake and look at the other lines. If Hou found the best move then both players would've had to find the best move every time otherwise it's a loss and i've had a quick look at the drawing line and there are some difficult moves to find which wouldn't be your first instinct to play.. An opening error is recoverable. a middle game error is hard to get back from. An endgame error loses.
If you're not convinced: another example.
after 30...b6 Ding get's into a bad endgame and at move 55 is losing yet Aronian (who's in the top 5) still managed to draw it!
endgames are really easy aren't they.
Obviously mistakes happen at any stage, at any level. I never suggested that endgames are easy. I only pointed out that they are easier than openings, that’s all.
And because they come after openings, one may not get to play the endings they studied.
Openings are by far easier to play then endgames.
Against amateurs. Against someone who studied their lines, you can lose in less than 20 moves. A slight slip-up and you fall for a trap, which trap is not obvious even for some weaker computers, because it involves many games played in that line, yet it’s not obvious why a move is a trap, except if you study it.
Kasparov himself screwed up in the Caro-Kann like at move 7th and decided to resign after 19 moves...
Fortunately i dont play against IM's and GM's so opening prep is not a concern. I play a line of the Benko Gambit that is considered "busted" at top level play. What does that matter to me? It doesnt. I can tell you this. In 40+ years of playing, i have NEVER been beaten by someone with a "prepared" opening. I have had kids tell me after a game that they lost because I didnt follow opening theory, or they forgot there theory, or mixed up there theory. I tell them to play the board, not theory.