what's the main difference between a 1300 and a 1800 player?

Eaztyz, you know, I actually dont know what my opponents plays in the club, but of course it is a good place to start, to get to know this, and learn to defend it ok. I thought that tuning openings against spesific players was a masterthing, that might come later. I met the winner of the Høsttournament in blitz a couple of weeks ago (1983Fide). They say he is a d4 specialist. I have been preparing against d4 for three months now, trying kings indian defence. Actually it went quite well. I survived 30+ moves, had an Interesting game, but lost it in timepanic, and finally lost on time. He said he would win or get a draw if I hadnt failed in the hurry.

I think its is very difficult to learn those openings good enough to get ok into the middlegame.

He, Geir Moseng is much faster than me, and have probably 30-40 years more chesscompetingexperience. I was happy that my kings Indian studies were good enough to survive the first attack, and that I got a chance to play many moves against a very strong man.

When you guys talks about not going to deep into openings, I agree. We can not go very deep. We new guys can not play Caruanaish, with new moves thats well analyzed. We must play new moves for the other reason, the reason that we actually doesnt know theory that far and therefore must play what we calculate ourselves. 

In Kiwi Konnerud I played a game without knowing what to do. In aftergameanalyze I was told that I had played the first ten moves like the book. I was very happy that I was able to figure out something that happened to be the book. The game went fantastic, I was in winning advantage after 30 moves, but then lost some grip and my 525 ratingpoints stronger opponent was able to save a draw in the end. I think he fought fantastic, and I made some positional misjudgements.

So I believe that every chessplayer should work a bit more with the parts of the game where he loose the most. For me its openings, and mistakes, and I mean basic opening play. I have a huge job to do in most parts of the game.

When I compare myself with players rated only 200-300 points above me, I feel that they take the advantage in the openings, but gets big problems in the middlegame if they havent got an early lead.

The superkids might be the ones you are refering to when advicing to give middlegame and endgame priority before openings, because those brilliant kids have the most winning openingplay  in my club, but gets problems in the midgame. So they can improve faster with midgameplaylearning.

Djonni when I suggested study openings for your next opponent, I meant more against opponents at around your strength.  If you get a good advantage out of the opening against them, you can expect to win.  However, against a stronger player, you might get an advantage out of the opening but then the game has only just begun because he will fight back to get a draw and maybe even win.  So my advice is study openings against players of your own strength.  As for stronger players, you are in the hands of the gods with the occasional good result until you become yourself stronger in general play.  I had a professional coach once.  He was a very strong player.  He set the agenda.  He never once gave me a lesson on openings because it was his view that until you are of a certain strength you are better off spending your energy improving your general play.  At the time I was already an A grade player and had won many local tournaments.

Eastyz, There are especially one fantastic player in Norway that hav given openings less priority than mid and endgame. He played so lousy openings that he had to work very hard to catch up in the middlegame. He got good at it, and also is one of the best endgamers ever.

Last year he got togheter high class openingplay too, with help from very strong GM`s, and he did it so good that he actually won the world Championmatch against Anand in Chennay.

I think your way is a good way,

But I really have lot to learn in the opening. It feels like my weak point in most of my games. I at 1422 Fide had to give up against a 9 year old girl (Linnea, 1425 fide) after 15 moves. She trashed me.

In Høstturneringen, with players at all strenghts (winner 1983, lowest rating none , and 568NSF) I won only one opening, won 3 games, and lost 6 of these 9 games. 8 lost openings in 9 games is not impressive, but maybe it is what I can expect having the third lowest rating among the 53 that have rating.

At that time I had 878 NSF and none fide.

http://turneringsservice.sjakklubb.no/standings.aspx?TID=Hostturneringen2014NordstrandS-NordstrandSjakklubb

That one player from Norway followed the example of Capablanca.  Fischer did too but he found that to beat the Soviet players who played as a block he had to study openings very hard.  If you did what Carlsen did for the most part and play solid openings and then outplay your opponents later in the game, you would be following a good example.  The fact that you lost in 15 moves tells me that you are playing sharp openings where you have no choice but to study the openings.  Play solid openings instead so that you are unlikely to get caught out that way.

All that theoretical stuff is very well, but in reality when a lower-rated player wins against a higher-rated player the theoretical goes straight out the window. There are many intangibles to take into account which can affect both players such as , mood (state of mind), restedness, not being rusty (out of practice), mixing up your opening theory, unfamiliarity with the position which presents itself at some point in the game, self-doubt, over-thinking things, lazy or routine thinking, drifting planlessly, you get the picture. There are many more of these sorts of things.

Chess.com has the ratings deviation (RD) which is a means of including the potential errors in the posted rating if a player doesn't play over a period of time. So, if your rating deviation goes up, it has a greater effect on the rating outcome of a particular game.

I am not sure what Freddy is saying.  My point is that at the lower levels, you need to build up your general strength before you can really study openings seriously.  You need to reach a certain level as a player before you can begin to understand where an opening gives a good or bad position.  If you understand the objective, you have a better chance of learning how to get there.  Otherwise you are learning openings by rote and stand a good chance of getting beaten because you don't understand the resultant position from the opening.  There is nothing new about this method.  You read Capablanca or even Lasker.  You have to understand what you are aiming for, and to do that you have understand why the objective position is good for you, before you can work seriously on an opening.

500 points

Maybe I play too sharp. Its a good advice to find something more solid. Suggestions? 

500 pts. Anymore math questions you need help with?

This joke is getting slightly outdated.

Play the Caro-Kann as black against e4.  Unless your opponent is strong, he or she will find it difficult to sharpen the struggle.  French is another option as it generally keeps the game closed.  Play also closed (or semi-closed) openings as white such as the English and Kings Indian Attack.  Again, unless you opponent is strong, the game will not sharpen up for a long time.  Against d4, play d5 lines such as the Slav.  There are sharp lines in the Slav but generally it takes two to tango.

As long as this thread lives, basic math will prove beneficial.

so is the thread.

Gud choice! 

Isn' 'v'ry'thin' is? 

Thank you very much. Good suggestions! I will look closer at the slav as my first new openingtraining. Maybe I should start play a lot d4 as white, to get a feeling what the attacker thinks against the slav ( I have been playing e4 always). 

If you play d4 as white, you have to be prepared for the Gruenfeld.  But that only sharpens up if you let it.  Play the Bf4 line.  Black can still sharpen it up from there, but it is harder and only a strong player would know what he is doing.

Whats the difference?

300 rating points. Duh