Survey : Correlating Limited Opening Knowledge with Federation Rating

Ok, I'll say you can claim to have this rating, but you shouldn't expect anyone to believe you.

Chess.com is in New York, really? 

Most of the above comment came off a bit creepy and overwrought, especially the managerial part.  I get that you were attempting to be funny and sarcastic though, and you obviously put a large amount of effort into it, so I applaud you.  Your humor comes across like that of an overzealous old man.  A bit corny.  You seem like a person who would get a lot of "laughs" at his jokes in real life, but they wouldn't be sincere.  Those types of situations would probably just be more uncomfortable than anything else for the people around you. 

So anyway, have you let it all out?  Do you feel more secure about yourself and your chess now?  Should I be expecting more overdramatic posts from you in the future?  Let me know, I can't wait.  That was fantastic.

^^^  I like it, it flowed perfectly.  I should have thought about this before I created my name because I felt right into your evil trap.

Don't worry I won't pull a "saidh" and lure you into a hip-hop style rhyme-off, god that was awful.  And he thought he won, what a moron.

I give thanks to NM Tonydal for attempting to bring us back to the topic of this thread.  Given the lovely exchanges we're having, I'm actually missing a Kanye West-like appearance from Saidh.

For those of you who've been generous enough with the "data" that I was hoping for, thanks!

Keep the on-topic answers coming! :)

"...How far did you progress in your Federation (provide rating range) (USCF, BCF, ELO/FIDE etc.) before you actually needed to work on your openings?..."

When you say "needed", well I don't feel like I ever "needed" to in the sense that my opponents would likely get an advantage if I didn't know the lines. I feel like the study of opening variations is mostly wasted time at the class player level. My main point in studying openings has been psychological. I have more confidence playing openings whose lines I've studied. 

But, to answer your question, not until I got to my current strength, appx. 1600 USCF, did I start studying any openings.

WildfireMayhem, I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but Saidh had one of the best chess games of all time...

OF ALL TIME!

Pure win.

It becomes necessary to study openings when you're not happy with your positions out of the opening stage (which can be a subjective assessment), or when you lose in the opening phase.

No extra innate ability. Others spend time on opening theory, they spend the same time on their ability to find the right move in a chess position.

Of course they'll make slightly mediocre moves in the opening, but make it up in the rest of the game.

But... well I just like studying openings, and doing anything actually hard feels like work. So I plateaud. So it goes...

Obviously, you have !

My experience is that there are roughly two groups of players :

• one group is very engrossed with pening theory : they learn a lot of lines and variations and have detailed opening knowledge. Those kind of people tell you : "yeah, but in the Najdorf English attack it's more accurate to play 9.g4 before 9.Qd2", or "in the Dragon, black can = against 9.0-0-0 by playing 9...d5"
• now, there is a second group, who are not necessarily familiar with all details, but have a decent grasp of the opening scheme they play. For example, they can play a decent KID as black, knowing main plans and typical patterns, or they can play some Philidor with exd4 and use a standard early middlegame plan. You'll find also people who play consistently low-maintenance openings such as London system or KIA
  

The 2nd category hasn't worked on openings, yet it doesn't mean they start thinking on move 3! It means they have understood the basics of some opening systems and have developped their knowledge through experience.

My point is that you can't become a fairly strong club player (say 1800 OTB) without at least belonging to the 2nd category. You just can't reinvent the wheel every time. I know nobody playing competition chess who does.

Now, I haven't answered your initial question : I have started studying openings when I started competition chess (in my 20's). But I plateau, and I'm now focusing more on other aspects of the game.

Very nice answer, hicetnunc.  So the key is a growing awareness of the openings via experience as opposed to a deep dive down some line or variation.

I don't say one solution is necessary better than the other. I've known people having reached a strong level (~2100 FIDE) using one or the other f these approaches.

What I realize now, is that to get even higher, you need to develop strengths in other areas of your game as well. So the holistic, Russian-like, method is probably best if you want a shot at a title. But U2300, the right method is simply the one which works better for you

Never mind about me being a corny old man, that's well known, and it's hard eating catfood and watching McGyver reruns all day...

Wildfire, you remind me of a guy who has to change his handle online frequently, cuz he's constantly making a fool of himself, realizing it, repenting, telling himself... "I'm not gonna troll, I'm not, I'm better than that, I'm NOT going to troll this time..." and then he's back at it. It's an addiction/personality disorder that hasn't been named yet -- some kind of ego-need attention-craving disease -- and I can see it's been going on with you for awhile because you're good at it. I hope you find some relief. Good luck. Really.

It was about 1800 DWZ (=German Rating, that could be today maybe around 1900 Fide-Elo).

Not sure if you mean by "work" on your openings. I have always found openings fascinating from the very beggining, I looked over openings that had positions that I liked and played them (memorized a few lines and learned the ideas). The only opening that I "studied" was the Sicilian Dragon. At around 1500 ELO. The problem I see with this study is that some players can play openings like C4 and D4 which can generally be played without and opening prep where people who play gambits and sharp lines need to study them. 

My 2 cents hoped this helped

i think you need a lot of opening knowledge to play 1.d4 seriously, and it would help to know a few main lines for 1.c4 as well.  between e4 and d4 i would think a similar amount of preperation is necessary to understand and utilze tham properly and be ready for anything black can throw at you.  for e4 you should know scillian, ruy, french, caro-kahn, pirc/modern and center-counter...some more than others ,like the scillian, you better be ready to play at least 4 different setups- najdorf, dragon, taminov and schvengian (sp?). and the ruy you better be prepared for open, closed, marshall, archangle, bryre, classical and berlin.  as far as d4 goes you should know kings indian, queens indian, nimzo indian, bogo indian, benoni (modern and classical), Queens gambit (QG) declined, QG accepted, QG Slav, gruenfeld, benko, budapest and englund counter gambits ect.  so both main opening choices (e4 and d4) have their own set of opening problems to figure out how to tackle from the white side.

I see your point. But knowing the lines in e4 I think is more important than d4, since many moves in sicilian positions are not obvious and mistakes can be more fatal. Where as d4 the moves in general are more natural and mistakes less punishable. Of course there are exceptions for both moves.

I think I started looking at openings when I first started taking the game seriously.  But, I didn't take the approach of buy book-memorize lines and play them. 

I went to chessgames.com looked at a bunch of master games and looked at the different ideas.  Then I played similarly and asked people what the purpose of moves were(I was probably about 1300 strength). 

At a later time(which I don't remember)I picked up chess openings for black(I probably played about 1500 at that point) and played some of the lines looking for lines which I found interesting(especially ones which weren't necessarilly investigated deeply).  When I ran into something that was really annoying I would go back to the book and see if I found something I liked.  If not I would go back to chessgames.com or some other source to find something which suited my style. 

About a year ago my game was really starting to improve(probably up to about the 1800 level).  But, the openings were clearly hindering my performance.  So this was when I really started digging into openings.  I still am pretty bad at them.  But, I am digging pretty deep into them now. 

Sorry, for the long winded response.  But, as has been stated opening study has sort of a broad definition. 

I have no clue about openings.Once I heard it quoted from a friend I dont study openings except to reach a playable middlegame.I have decided to leave openings alone except to  recognizing the names by the moves.

so far (1520) USCF with tactical study and I can only recognize the opening moves to a few openings (no theory and,hardly understanding middlegame plans if at all).However I have noticed that i lean towards e4 in my openings and like the idea of grunfeld and indian defences as black.