What is the most important to study? opening, middlegame or endgame?

level 0: these together:

a. absolutely basic endgames (including K+P v K start)

b. enough opening theory to get into a decent middlegame against say someone 1500- here correspondence.

c. go through 'booby fisher teaches chess' - absolutely basic tactics, but solid foundation starting from scratch.

level 1:

a. regular tactics training.

b. more endgames (K+P v K mastery, K+P v K+P start, K+R+P v K+R start)

b1. solve some endgame studies.

c. some more opening theory, defending against gambits, playing gambits.

d. strategy [overlapping tactics and endgame] start: open files and half-open files and what to do with them after occupying them, what to do with 2 minor pieces v R with pawns on board], B v N, bad B and good B and B pairs and what to do with them,

level 2:

a. very regular tactics training.

b. more endgame theory (K+P +K+P more; K+R+P v K+R more; K+Q v K+R until philidor pos with either side on move), solve more endgame studies.

c. strategy and planning in the middlegame. [starting where one left off in level 1-d]

level 3:

a. tactics, tactics, tactics.

b. nimzowitch's 'My system' - in fact this can be started much earlier, thanks to likesforest's ongoing [free!] lessons here on chess.com. :)

c. do lots of endgame studies.

d. more openings. Reuben Fine's Ideas Behind The Chess openings - again this can be started much earlier.

one thing: buy a physical board; preferably three physical boards! [including at least one pocket-sized one and two 'standard-size'] - i have 12 boards, 12 sets of pieces which include 3 pocket-magnetic.

streetfighter wrote:

I simply don't understand why so many people consider the endgame to be the most important part of chess-it's simply not so.

It really depends on your skill, but for anyone starting to study chess, end games are the most important thing for a very simple reason, which is that the player needs to get experience with the pieces, how they move, which tricks you can make with each of them without having a lot of other pieces around to disturb. Simple end games show very well how to work with the pieces.

If you study chess games, you may notice that the game is over just after the last move is played. Capablanca didn't advise the student of chess to study the endgame first - he advised the student to "master" the endgame first. It is the purpose of tactics to arrive at a winnable endgame. No one as yet has devised an opening which always wins. Openings are fashionable, waxing and waning in popularity. Endgames contain immutable truths.

LisaV wrote:

I'll throw in a chip for the endgame.   Knowing what wins in endgames guides your moves/tactics in the middlegame. 

Excellent point, LisaV!

As someone wrote: what is the point of a brilliant prepared opening variation and a hard middlegame struggle to reach a won ending if you have no idea how to win it?

wormrose wrote:

Openings are fashionable, waxing and waning in popularity. Endgames contain immutable truths.

Nice way to put it.

Openings raise more questions than answers. What if the opponent does X instead of the recommended line? A master may know enough to squash unsound departures from book. But do you?

how does one reach a good middle game? with a good opening game...

how does one reach a good end game? with a good opening and middle game...

how does one survive a game? by being good in the "opening-mid-end" games.

I think that you should have a decent understanding of the endgame, but most of the time you can get a nice advantage in the endgame like an extra pawn or two or maybe the exchange or a piece, or better pawn structure. It doesn't require advanced understanding to convert these advantages. Of course, at master level, I'm sure the endgame would become more important.

Endgame is the most difficult part and is the most important.

WafflesRTasty wrote:

What most people here don't realize is that openings and middlegames are BASED off of endgame theory. Once you learn how to win an endgame, you can then attempt to strategize in a way to get that favorable endgame position that will lead to victory. Once you master how to do that, you will learn how to open in such a fashion to enable yourself to reach a playable middlegame and eventually endgame. Although checkmates happen in the middle of games quite often, the essence of chess is to open well, attempt to gain some advantage going into the endgame, and then use that tiny (often positional advantage) to squeeze out a win. Strategy is all nice and all, but if you don't even know how to use the queen side majority to win the endgame, what's the point of creating it in the first place? Trust me, I tried the opening first approach and failed miserably. Then I started studying endgames, and my skill reached a whole new level. You start to UNDERSTAND the openings and middle games at a much better level.

I agree with this line of thought most.  Learn how to checkmate (all the popular ones) then how to promote pawns and the concept of opposition early.  You do need to understand really basic opening theory or you're probably not going to see an endgame.  I didn't start learning openings until I learned lots of tactics.  Simple tactics like forks, skewers, discovered attacks, and traping bishops and knights are real important and will help you understand why opening ideas are good or bad.  I didn't really focus on learning more than one opening until I was losing too often to better opening ideas.

Good question !  Certainly there will be many answers and many differing views.

As a noob, it feels to me that openings must be critical. My comments mirror those of a previous poster. Against a good opponent, I find that by move eight, nine or ten I'm already purely responding to my better opponent's threats and I have completely lost tempo. I assume this is because I don't have good openings or am blundering early. Playing against good opponents is getting frustrating, but this is just supposed to be a fun game, right?

You should study all three phases: the beginning, the middle, and the end of the game.

question is vague, but i can tell you one thing, its not endgame.

i got to 2100 uscf without knowing the basics of king opposition. Considering how many players complain about getting stuck at ratings 400-600 points or below on the rating ladder, i highly doubt its an endgame issue.

as for opening, it depends on what you play, but a player who really doesnt want to study openings can get pretty far by picking a repertoire that minimizes the need to learn theory, and can get away with natural moves. or systems.

its all about the middlegame, good middlegame will let you have a sizeable advantage to easily win the endgame if it even gets there, and you can outplay your opponents even if they get advantage in the opening.

if you have big aspirations to become a strong master, maybe starting with the endgame has some deep merit i never grasped, but if you are not aiming to go pro, its definately 100% middlegame.

i would go even further than that, i think a class player can learn ALL they need to know about openings and endgames combined in the equivalent of 1-2 weeks. The rest will be tactics and middlegame strategy which will be the bulk of their training to reach expert level. Their opening time may take longer if they really want to learn some fancy stuff or have a desire to get booked up, but this is optional.

a bad opening can mess you up big time so your end game is meaningless... no?

A good middlegame can set up the rest, but I don't know

middle game > endgame > opening

Work backwards.

Basic endings....middle games...openings.

In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before everything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.