I don't know what your elo is now or what you consider intermediate. But yes, the biggest gains I ever got were after changing my openings. And that is just a fact that's true irrespective of what anyone else has to say on here.
Alot of dogmatic people repeating eachother will tell you to ignore openings as a beginner... but most of them didn't actually do that when they were beginners. I never found this advice useful - for one, it's not like the amount of brain power that gets directed toward a task is unrelated to interest or effort made, discouraging someone from making efforts doesn't automatically increase their efforts in another area... and it doesn't take too much effort to learn the basics of an opening. But by studying your opening and playing it consistently you do learn common tactics and ideas about positional chess and so on. Otherwise you're just left floating in this sea of confusion about the position you're playing... None of the people who will tell you to completely ignore everything about the opening have actual evidence on student outcomes to justify their ideas on learning... you should do what works for you and use your own sense of what you need.
Generally I think tactics are something that will come on their own, it's actually quite difficult to make serious progress in tactics through deliberately focusing on them... at least that's been my experience, I've seen people do tons of puzzles daily and still suck at tactics in game. Because there's alot in a game that goes into setting up and recognizing tactics. If anything... I'd say the more familiar you are with the positions you're playing the more you'll start to recognize common tactics in them, this I think is a very natural way of improving at tactics. And if you just play consistently and manage your time well you will get better at tactics gradually.
I do think you should not drill too deep into an opening before you are at a certain level though. Because developing a serious repertoire takes a tremendous amount of time, and you should do it once after you really know what you like. Until then you really should not commit to a single opening very hardcore until you've gotten a broad overview of all the different openings, and you're rated like 1800.
Hi, everyone
I just started playing chess about a month ago, and my progress seemed to be stalling at 500. I looked up the Ruy Lopez opening, and my play has improved substantially. I'm most into the intermediate level.
All I had to do was change my opening game. Has this been anyone else's experience?