Importance of openings knowlege query

I'm trying to improve my game and am wondering how important is a good working knowledge of all the different openings to achieve that goal.

Hey Jim,

 

I'm actually in the same boat as you...I wonder how much I have to know and how many games I'm losing (any? all of them?) because I am not playing "by the book".  Everything I've heard about lower level players like me and you is to not worry about it but instead focus on tactics.  I think that's been paying off for me lately...but still I wonder when I should start learning all these ridiculous names of openings and which one to play against which one. 

For beginning and improving players, the key is to learn general opening principles and use those. However, this doesn't mean that you can't study openings. The thing is that in doing so, you need to understand why the book moves are good rather than learning the opening by rote.

The original question was how important is learning openings to improving your chess.  The answer is it's not.  If you try to learn openings without a good knowledge of positional and tactical basics, you will struggle to make sense of what the books are saying.  My own openings knowledge is pretty sparse, but my grading is quite good.  I am now trying to learn some openings properly and find it loads easier than when I originally tried.

If you learn some general opening principles first and then want to get a bit more involved, try learning openings in the order they were played historically.  I.e. start with the Italian game and Kings Gambit to improve your tactics and move through to the more modern openings like the Sicilian Defence and English much later since they are more complicated.

Also, try and tie in what you learn with the history of the development of that opening (like where it was first played and by whom)  as that seems to help memory.  Simply learning move lists is ok , but months later you can otherwise get confused between specific move orders.  Play blitz games to find out if you maybe dont know the opening moves as well as you thought you did.

Good luck. 

I used to have the same problem.  But my playing degrades through memorizing opening lines.  Think about this: even the professionals who have had the ability to basically look at a single line once and have it memorized have to study openings for years and years.  Grandmasters have listed trying to memorize openings without understanding the principles as a common mistake among amateur players.  That doesn't mean you have to neglect opening study.  Here's what I do, and it works great:  Try to understand the openings and come up with them on your own.  (First pieces to get out are usually king's biship, two knights, kind and queens pawn, try to get control of the board, castle, etc.) Sometimes you'll encounter an opening that you constantly have trouble with and can't figure out.  THAT'S when you look it up.  Remember, a lot of the great chess players (such as fischer) were so strong partially because they sometimes ignored what the book says.  Think of the opening book not as an absolute law but as a guide.  When I do that, it actually improves my openings more, and I'm much more likely to remember that opening line.  Don't be an encyclopedia, be an original player:-D

As a side note, people who have memorized lines prematurely...there's no easier way to mess them up than to play an opening not accepted by the book.  They just get decimated.

As mentioned already you should concentrate on tactics and so forth, but I would suggest learning just one simple opening for use against everything untill you find yourself needing more. The one opening that springs to mind is the ruy lopez as it follows all of the opening rules that you should stick to and is generally safe and normal. Here are the first couple of moves:

This should get you to a place where you can start deploying your tactics safely, having developed your pieces.