There are no openings that are "easy to play." Every opening has sharp lines that you need to know.

I think the best way to learn is by trial and error - so take this game - next time you play against the Samisch you'll have a better idea of what to do than you did this time. Every game you play you should try to review and learn from.

When people recommend beginners not to study the openings, I think they mean that you shouldn't devote too much study time to just memorizing variations like you see in traditional opening books. But by all means study the opening phase of the game with a view to understanding proper strategy and tactics. And learn the key lines in the openings that you choose to play.

Just as an example in the King's Indian - it's pretty basic to know that after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 Black can play 6...e5 without fearing White taking the pawn. This is something that everyone who plays this opening should know, even a total beginner. What's less useful is studying whether after 6...e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1, Black should play 9...Ne8 or 9...Nd7 - that type of study just won't benefit a low level player. First off, the chance of an opponent under 1900 even playing the main line with Ne1 is relatively small, and even if they do, the chance of them being able to exploit a minor inaccuracy is small. As long as you know the general strategy - move the knight away and advance on the Kingside, you'll be fine.

I know that, I just don't want to have a really poor game after 7 or 8 moves.

Having said that I had a 2000 rated player play this against me last night (I'm white). 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc6 Qd8... I was very surprised to say the least.

Ikasigh,

That all makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you.

That's a reasonably standard Scandinavian variant.

I mean, the problem is "really poor game" is sort of hard to define. You lost that game when your opponent got a pretty awesome kingside attack going after you didn't really know when and where to play your pawn breaks. That's a *good* thing, because getting a better feel for pawn breaks is something players at your level (and several levels beyond) should really be zeroing in on as a place for improvement.

I think sometimes people choose passive openings because while losses like that one feel pretty bad, a no-less-decisive loss might feel "closer." Maybe you switch to the QGD and the higher-rated player trades you down to a good bishop vs. bad bishop endgame that you eventually lose a pawn and then the game in 60 moves. The computer probably evaluated it as more or less even through 30! But really, I'm not sure you were any closer to winning that theoretical game than you were the actual one, and I'm not sure it's as good for your improvement. (As always, these are just *my* opinions on chess improvement. YMMV).

I'm having a similar experience with the KID's cousin the Modern. I've had a blast learning it, but you have to have the stomach to know that sometimes your opponent's first three moves are going to be e4 d4 and f4, and that while you should be able to weather that storm, occasionally I am going to just get completely rolled off the board and I can imagine the other guy's face (if I'm playing online) looking at me with derision for playing such a stupid opening and letting him have an easy, crushing attack. Of course, there's a lot of other times where that kingside pawn storm just runs into an amazingly resilient brick wall and the weak squares he's left in the center become his undoing.

The "don't study openings" advice is overdone a little bit, but the reason it is thrown out there so often is that so many amateurs do spend way too much time worrying about openings and bounce around instead of addressing what they need to learn. When you have a game like the one above, there are three possible responses:

1) Wow, the f3 variation of the KID is tough from white, I should learn the next few moves of that line.
2) Huh, that early e5 that I missed was critical. I should really examine the position and figure out why that was good there and try to apply it to similar positions.
3) Man, KID isn't working for me, I should learn something else.

Either 1 or 2 is fine, maybe even a mix, but 2 is probably best. But 3 is problematic. Just avoid 3, and you should be fine. That's not to say you shouldn't learn different openings. It can be fun and instructive. Just don't do it because you got rolled up in this one game.

Yes, so much good stuff has resulted from this loss, as opposed to the win I posted where I just got patted on the back.

This loss, and some losses vs the French, have highlighted my need to learn a bit more about the opening concepts. This is why I was asking the questions. If I need to do some work, then maybe I should look at something other than the KID, and I will. Not that I will ignore the KID, but that I will branch out and look at a few other options so that I can decide which I like best. I think I will look at QGD, slav and nimzo as well. For a response to e4 I am unsure. I am debating learning the caro kann or maybe just stick with e5 or c5 (and get crushed sometimes).

inb4 someone points out that e5 there isn't a pawn break, it's just a pawn move

Personally I would recommend sticking with the KID for a while longer. One of the major advantages is that if people play c4 or Nf3 you can just play standard KID moves and either transpose into it or at least get a decent set up from which to proceed.

I also remember a comment from (I think) Dvoretsky where he states that too many players when starting out want to blame an opening for their defeat. It may be true but there is more to be gained from fixing that part of your repertoire than completely changing it.

Actually - my second recommendation won't be too popular on here but.........

If you're having trouble against the French as White you can always study it as Black. This has 2 benefits - one is that you make your opponents sweat as much as you do and secondly you can find out some good lines against it!

OK, I *may* have once compared 1. ... e6 in response to e4 to removing one's pants and pooping on the board.

I second the recommendation to poop on the board yourself. I've done this before when I couldn't figure out some opening people played against me, I started playing it myself. I can't remember which opening it was, but I remember thinking it was successful.

Come on, pooping on the board is obviously e4 e6 d4 d5 exd5. Although you'll still get rolled by somebody 2 classes up, the lessons might be easier to learn in a less complicated position.

And "lost" at your level where you're mentally out of it should be down a rook for nothing or something. Even if you know you're toast with best or even decent play, try to walk your opponent into something stupid because he might be on autopilot too and oblige. I have no idea how many points I've seen scored by me and by friends against 2000+ players from -5+ eval and/or "obviously busted" positions. Hell, I had one tournament as an 1800ish where I scored +2 =3 against an A, 3 experts, and a master, and I was lost in all the games except against the A.

I would agree that keeping on fighting is always a good option - I could even mention the 2000+ player - a rook and bishop up - who saw if he moved his King one way I had a perpetual so moved it the other - straight into a mate in one!

I also remember that playing in Open tournaments the one thing that struck me was how hard you had to work to convert winning positions into the full point. No one would give up and kept finding all sorts of traps and resources to keep the game going.

one can do study over basic stuffs if one becomes an expert. one gets there with chess talent if one has it. to get to master level is said to be difficult though could be a talent issue also and is.

one can always learn more but it wont improve ones rating until one has the talent to back it up. an average chess player reaches his peak in a couple of years and though he can still learn more, his rating wont improve as any time he wins with knowledge, he loses it back as he is overrated. this is so at chess, and at strengths as a limitation of how strong one can get. with more talent one gets better with knowledge also, and in a game of poker, wins an extra bet or so.

to study chess just isnt the thing to do above bases other than for some 10% of serious players, in case they want to waste their time for trying to become a so called master, thats just one level among others below and above.

for a hobby player, playing slavs with black is way the most universal pick as it contains so much of all. with white the way could be the same but one can play c4 instead, playing and not playing the bc1 out. d4, nf3, e3, c4, like in that order. against 1e4, sicilian, thats also the best and universal as 1...c5 isnt yet a pick of a system, just making the best move when white blunders by not playing the 1d4, though 1c4 produces symmetry. najdorf is the best by test and other sicilians can get in trouble. there is also more universality in najdorf, though not that one necessarily always plays ...e5 there though it might be the best, and i think for the hobby player it produces the solid structure, similar to slav in a way. these black systems get to play to win if white allows, thats one problem with slav but acceptable, and even with sicilian but acceptable. the best move for 1d4 is 1...d5 and to 2.c4, 2...c6. 1.d4 is the best by test, and other options busted really, and in sicilian there are lines that have scored black just as well as to white.

Ok, so it's been a while since I've updated this thread, but I have continued to work hard on my game. I have been unable to play any live tournaments since the last one I posted just due to scheduling issues, until recently so I thought I would post my games from the tournament I played two weeks ago as well as from the weekly tournament I am playing this month. OK, here goes.

Game 1. There isn't much to say about this game. My opponent blunders and I'm able to take advantage of the blunder. I was happy with the game though because I really took advantage of his mistakes and played a relatively clean game.

Game 2. So, I'm playing a 2164 now. When he played a Caro Kann I knew I wanted to play a Bg5 variant because I had played two of these on chess.com correspondence, but they were months ago. At that time I had read this article. In this game I got the move order wrong, but still ended up with a very good opening. But I had no idea what to do on move 12. I would love some insight into this game.

Here is the position:


Ok. Game 3. I thought I had annotated this game, but it appears I have not. This the second KID I have played in tournaments and yet again I had no idea what I was doing. I will have to go through this game again, but I think for now I am giving up the KID and will try Nimzo and Bogo indians based on advice I have read in Watson's "Mastering the Chess Openings Volume 4" Chapter 9. This was the third game that I played on the Saturday and it's pretty poorly played by me.

Sunday begins with Game 4. I wanted to try something different and see how it did. I had never played b3 in a serious game before. It worked out pretty well. I miscalculated the complications around move 16. I simply didn't see 17. ... Nc6. I had seen that 16. Bf3 should win the piece, but I thought my line was stronger. Had I have seen Nc6 it would have added a lot more calculations for me to rung through but I think I would have seen the pin and resulting win with the b5 thrust.

This game was against a local from my club. I think he plays quite good, and have heard this from others as well. He makes a mistake in the opening and it's hard to come back from it. Game 5.

Ok. That was my first tounament since November. +3 -2 =0. I think I did pretty well overall. I will post a few more games from the monthly tournament shortly.

in game 2 I think in general the whole opening with Bg5 is not very good. You have a space advantage so you should avoid exchanging pieces.

In game 3, the move c6 doesn't fit very well with the plan of a King-side pawn storm.

Ikasigh,

Do you mean the general ideas of Bg5 are bad as per the Silman article? Or the specific moves that I made prior to move 12? I am clueless with regards to the Caro and this was the only play I sort of remembered. I know I can play 3. Nc3, but I don't know what happens as I have no experience.

For game 3 I was out of book at 8. ... c6 and I didn't know what black's plan should be. If a kingside pawn storm is the correct plan then I suppose I should have played 8. ... Nh5, followed by f5 and Nf6?

In the Caro Kan game you messed up the move order and played Bd3 before Bg5, which is an inferior move order. 5.Bg5 is better, but I still don't think it is a very good opening - the Sliman article considers 5.Bg5 Qb6 6.Bd3 Bxd3 7.Qxd3 Qxb2 8.e6, which is indeed good for White, but 7...Qxb2 is not the best move in the position.

In the King's Indian game, the normal plan is Nc5 and a5 without including c6 and cxd5.

Qxb2 is hard to not play unless you know this line though as it appears quite benign on it's surface.

I sort of knew I had the move order incorrect, but I didn't know any lines in the Caro when he played so I dug deep into my memory and pulled out the flank attack Bg5 line idea. If he plays Qb6 earlier I think I would have been in big trouble as I wouldn't have found the correct line anyways.

What are some good lines for white against the Caro then?

Actually, I'd say that at your level the h4-h5-Bg5 line is probably as good as anything else. At least it should get your opponents out of their opening knowledge pretty quickly.

But like in any opening it makes sense to try different lines to figure out what positions you feel most comfortable with.

I agree with lkasigh to find lines that you feeling comfortable playing, against the Caro in particular. It's an opening that's solid and has been around for a long time and is still played by 2600+ GMs. There isn't a single best line against it, so just play what you like.