Learning openings with a computer

Hi, 

I'm struggling with openings. I get caught out quite  a lot. 

Is there a chess engine where you can force it to play a certain opening?

Stockfish 8 here (Opening Explorer and Analysis Board):

https://www.chess.com/explorer

https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor

Thanks I will give it a go.

true, but I came off quite bad in a scotch opening recently and Id like to look at it in more detail so next time I won't fall for it again. I used the opening engine but it doesn't say what people might do only what people have done, so you must guess what will happen. 

Other opening can leave you in a bad position if you don't know them. Ive read loads about openings but playing them all would lead to lots of losses and you're never sure who you play will make the best of the position. 

In essence I'm just trying to learn more openings. Books are good and so are databases, but sometimes you just got to face them to see how they transpire. 

Someone told me that Fritz can be told to adopt a certain opening and pay it against you. 

I strongly agree with the advice that you should understand the ideas behind the openings much more than memorizing a set of moves: I'm often out of the book moves I know by moves 2 to 6.

But I do use the computer to explore what happens if my opponent surprises me with various moves - the computer can "see" what the opponent might do to me after that move than I can.

You can force the free, excellent Lucas Chess to play a defined-by-you sequence of opening moves. You can then randomize the computer moves to some extent, you can determine which engine (Stockfish 8, etc.) to play against, and you can set the strength of the engine or just tell it to play slightly weaker than you are playing, slightly better, or the same.

It's here: http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/index.html

There's no manual, but you can get some insights here:

http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=lucas_chess

ok I understand what you're saying but after I was soundly beaten I then decided to investigate the scotch. And I wanted to understand the permutations of possible responses. I understand why it went wrong but I thought, hmm this opening has potential to be very good and catch people out so I wanted to gain a more of an in-depth analysis, like what if I did take the pawn gambit and what if Id not moved my bishop first etc.. these you can look at all day in the openings book I just wanted to play some out. 

But thank you for your replies. 

Yeah I think that's ok as long as you're trying to understand the ideas behind the moves.

Use Lucas Chess or Chess Position Trainer for what you are trying to do.

Here are a couple of blog posts I wrote on the subject:

http://omgchess.blogspot.com/2015/08/learning-openings-thoroughly-with-lucas.html

http://omgchess.blogspot.com/2015/08/more-on-learning-openings.html