I'm gonna go against what others are saying here... learn openings if you're a low rated player. They not only give you tactics against players who don't prepare against them, but you also never have to feel lost in the first 12 or so moves. You can just study 1 or 2 lines for a start, it's really not hard especially with computers.
A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
21–30 of 135 posts
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#22Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…
> Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time Here is a counter argument - below 1700, someone who knows the strength of an opening would outperform those who do not.
The opening strength will only work when you know how to exploit something small in opponent's opening like a miss of tempo or wrong reply, which I think is above the skill of sub 1700. All the players above 1000 know basic principles like mobility of pieces and developing centre.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#23When I was starting to learn chess I liked the London System. It was easy to memorize and helped me get a footing in how to think about chess.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#24Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…
I found openings to be very useful for players rated 1000-1500 when working with my high school chess team. The main benefit is that by understanding the typical moves of an opening, you make it a lot easier to avoid dropping a piece in the first 10 or 15 moves, or ending up massively behind in development because something tricked you. You avoid a decent amount of losses that way.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#25While I agree with others here in that studying tactics and endgames is a better use of your time if you want to step up your game, you can still improve your opening without actively studying it. I remember when I was starting out I used to watch a lot of Jonathan Schrantz videos out of sheer interest and I ended up picking up quite a lot of ideas and principles all the while having fun. So definitely check out some [1] of his Saint Louis Chess Club lectures! He also has his own YouTube (as well as Twitch) channel [2] where he mostly goofs around and beats not only strong players but also chess engines with incredibly dubious openings.
On a different note, in case anyone finds it helpful, here's a CLI tool [3] I wrote last week which you can use to build opening repertoires. The intended use case is to 1) download the games of a chess player from a website like openingtree.com, 2) run the tool on the fetched PGN file to generate an opening repertoire, and 3) import the output into a study tool like lichess or chessable.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxUuueHFfFs
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
how does one study tactics?
Tactics trainers: https://lichess.org/training/ https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/ https://www.chess.com/puzzles
I'm curious if anyone has advice on how to interpret the ratings in the tactics trainers. Should they map roughly to your in-game rating? I'm pretty new to chess and still pretty bad (just under 1000 online, I make a lot of blunders and/or fall for opponents' tactics) but my rating is 1750 on the tactics trainer.
I would imagine at some point the tactics are not the bottleneck and I should be working on something else instead (openings, endgames, or studying mid-game strategy?) but just wondering where that point is.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#27My advice to beginners is to not stick with one opening, but to play them all. Include wild openings like the Kings Gambit and Danish Gambit, as well as strategic openings like the Queen's Gambit. You will be out of 'the book' very quickly, and that's actually good. You'll be learning to play, rather than recall. Another piece of advice: Study endgames before openings. Learn about K + P vs K, the elementary mates, (K…
Agree with this. You can do well through the game and come to the end with a slight advantage in material and if at that point you don't know how to close the deal, then ????????
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#28Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…
> Below 1700 or so
On what rating system? USCF? Lichess? Chess.com?
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add to this, the advice I've been given as a new/low rating chess player is to study endgames, if you must study something specific.
Specifically for endgames you pretty much only need to know two patterns that are rather algorithmic: How to close a game where you’re up a rook or a queen (without stalemating). How to close a game where you’re up one pawn, if it’s not a forced stalemate. Two bishops is maybe something you want to learn. Theoretically knight + bishop as well. I play a lot of bullet chess and pretty much never see these though. The r…
I have ~3000 blitz games in Lichess and I have never once had to play 2 bishops or bishop knight end games.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#30Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…
I understand what you're saying and agree, although I may suggest that 1700 number come down a bit to maybe 1200. I'm around the 1000-1200 range (just picked it up again recently) and I'd say most of my peers on Chess.com around that range have definitely studied openings and present sneaky traps consistently in the first ~5-15 moves. Playing as black for me is the real driving force for me to study openings because…
It is a question of opportunity cost. If you are studying openings at the expense of doing tactical puzzles and sharpening your tactics, it is not the most efficient use of your time at the 1200 level.
If you have a 1200 level tactics skill and 1500 level openings skill, you are going to be about a 1200 rated player. If you have a 1500 level skill in tactics, you are going to be about a 1500 rated player regardless of whether you've studied openings. Remember: Being able to calculate tactics better helps with openings! Just because your opponent has memorized something and you haven't doesn't mean you can't just calculate on the fly and avoid falling into obvious traps.