When you people say “learn an opening”, how many moves are we talking?

It depends on the opening, but I recommend learning enough moves so that you know how to continue after the book moves. Another important thing is being able to adapt; often, the opponent might not play moves that make your opening effective, you need to know few responses to each thing your opponent might play. Sorry if that sounds complicated; don't stress out about it. It'll come with time

When people say "Learn a new language", how many words are we talking?

Thanks for sharing

Usually when we say "learn an opening" it would refer to you being able to survive playing out of it without getting crushed out of nowhere. To put in a different perspective, imagine you would want to visit your "dream country" where you do not have any knowledge on the native language, you would definitely learn the language/dialect to a certain level where you can survive on your own speaking it. Now you dont need to know the "whole" thing but start small like greetings, ordering food and slowly go your way up in sentences, common phrases etc. Gradually you'll be able to understand first and then later speak the language on an at least conversational level, which from there is usually a matter of improvement over time into fluency.

For the opening, we usually should learn what the main ideas are for that position. Its usually easier to go from when you know what types of position you would want to go for and then try to look up games for it. Eg you want to learn on the Ruy Lopez as White, then look up the opening where you can find games of strong players who play it, articles explaining it and even videos for it. From there, you could try to skim through many games to see the setups and you'll surely know a pattern on how that certain position is played.

Starting off, I would say its definitely best to try to understand what to do than what I would see as mindless things such as simply "following theory" since if you're out of book suddenly you realize you have no clue how to handle your position. The number of moves usually can be like from 4 moves up to 20+ moves of theory. Im currently taking courses on the Sicilian and Grunfeld where the variations can go up to 25 moves. But the essence is the same, once we understand the idea/concepts for it, we can find it somewhat less hard to go from there. These are my two cents, hope it helped in a way. Stay safe and cheers! 😊😊

How ling is a rupe But yeah the learning of openings never ends.

I would say something like 5, at a beginner level. But what's really important is following opening principles (https://www.chess.com/lessons/opening-principles) and understanding the ideas behind the move you're playing. If you follow opening principles you can usually survive and get a fine position, even if you know only a very limited amount of moves.

If you want to defend yourself better during the opening phase, I would say that learning how to avoid opening traps can be very helpful.

There are many articles on the internet about opening traps and how to avoid them. 

Learning an opening isn't like memorizing tons of lines. It really comes down to understanding the main themes of the opening, how to react to common structures and how to attack/defend in likely situations. 

No memorization tricks are likely to work, because opponents will leave book faster than you can imagine. You show you know the opening when they do that and you respond correctly without memorization.

When we say learn an opening, we aren’t even talking about moves. We’re talking ideas, plans, common tactics, pitfalls, etc.

I play the Alekhines defense. Ever since I learned it, I haven’t expanded my depth of moves. But I’ve maintained a good score from 1300 to now. Because I know how to play the opening.

At below 1000 level, just try to learn the first 3 or 4 moves of an opening.

When you finish a game that features an opening or a variation of an opening that you haven't seen before, review the game with an engine (or a human) and learn one more move.

Over time you will learn more and more openings and variations of various openings.

Here's a video by Dan Heisman with more info:

90% of chess is just not dropping a piece.

I think you just need a nice easy reply to the type of games you are getting online or orb. Fundamentals are probably more worthwhile or watching chess streams than openings, however an opening can be good if it fits your playstyle.

I prefer to learn the main ideas behind an opening, how to respond to annoying, or aggressive lines against the ones I use. Or for instance the London how to respond aggressively to it so I can play my own game or play in a way that seems natural to me.

Eg for Alekhine’s defence I’d want to know how to play it against the opponent and what you want to do plus responding to awkward lines. However at the minimum learning how to develop all your pieces in the opening would suffice

there is definitely a difference between knowing an opening and knowing theory. i think knowing an opening is just being able to recognize it whether it is being able to recognize a najdorf, king's gambit, or austrian attack. theory involves a deeper understanding what the goals of the opening are and knowing best responses to common moves.

some openings like the scandinavian, london, trompowski, alapin, modern, or hippo have very little theory. others like the queen's gambit, king's gambit, najdorf sicilian, or catalan have a great deal of theory. the amount of theory depends upon how much the opening has been studied and how many different ways the position can be approached strategically.

so as has been said it is much like learning a language. there is always something new to learn and new things are added all of the time

Hi there!

I’d be happy to help you work on your openings, but it’s not learning specific lines, but learning how to ask the right questions and find the right answers to them. You can play most openings fine if you learn this process and then you’ll be better off in later stages of the game using a similar technique. If you’d like message me with your time availability and time zone, we can work out a time to meet up and discuss your chess more on whatever platform you prefer (Skype/Zoom/Discord, ect) and get you feeling good about the opening phase of the game and more!  Regardless, have fun with chess!

-Jordan 

It is not about knowing moves or how many.  It is about understanding ideas and being able to identify when your opponent has made a mistake.  It is not about memorizing moves or how many.

I use the following example all the time to illustrate:

The Grunfeld Defense.  I can reel out the first 13 or so moves of the Seville Variation - 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 O-O 9.Be3 Nc6 10.O-O Bg4 11.f3 Na5 12.Bxf7+ Rxf7 13.fxg4.  Great!  Now what should Black and White be doing?  I don't know!  What if White deviates with 7.g3?  I don't know!  I do not understand the Grunfeld at all!  I happen to have one line memorized from seeing WC games from the 80s.  As far as trying to play the Grunfeld, this is utterly useless.  (I play the King's Indian against 1.d4, by the way).

Now let's take the French Defense.

1) Why is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 good and 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 good, but 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 c5 bad?  This I can answer.  After 3.e5, all pressure is taken off of Black's strong point, d5.  With that the case, 3...c5 is an excellent move, chipping at what is for the moment the base of White's pawn chain.  OK, so why 3.Nd2 c5?  The d5-pawn is still under pressure from the e4-pawn, and White can trade instead of advance?  The answer is in the knight.  By going to d2, he has plugged up his bishop and Rook, and his knight is now a long way from d5.  He no longer has Nc3 to attack d5.  So he cannot pressure the d5-point AND his play will be slow at getting his queenside pieces out.  Therefore, Black accepts the isolated queen pawn in return for great piece activity while White is moping around to avoid pawn weaknesses seen in the Winawer and McCutchen.

After 3.Nc3, 3...c5 is terrible!  White can trade on d5 and now the Knight is pressuring d5.  This is different than the Exchange French as Black there can still play ...c6 to pretext d5.  Not here!  So Black should play 3...Bb4 or 3...Nf6, both of which re-threaten the e4-pawn, trying to entice White to advance e5, taking all pressure off of d5.  After 3...Bb4 4.e5, only NOW is 4...c5 good!  Now that d5 is fully secure, Black attacks d4!

2) Why is f4 bad in some lines but not others?  It all has to do not with the f-pawn, but the a7-g1 diagonal, often the diagonal the White King is on, and so pins against the d4-pawn can often decide when this is good (Steinitz) vs bad (Advance or 2.f4).

3) Why does Black attack the Queenside in the Advance French?  Why not a direct attack at the White King?

Answer here is simple.  When you play an opening with a completely blocked center (Kings Indian, French, etc), the play is on the wings, and who plays on which wing is decided by what direction the blocked pawns point.  f7-e6-d5 points toward the queenside.  c3-d4-e5 for White points toward the kingside.  That is where each side's attack is.

4) Why should Black either delay castling or play an early f6 or f5 in the Classical?

It is because of a well-known attacking idea by White that occurs most often in the Colle System and French Defense.  It is called the Greek Gift Sacrifice.  After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.f4, first off 7...c5 is bad because of 8.Nb5! With threats of both Nc7 and Nd6.  So Black must play 7...O-O or 7...a6 intending 8...c5.  The line with 7...a6 delays castling and the GGS is not an issue.  But after 7...O-O, which is a perfectly fine move, after 8.Nf3 c5 9.Bd3, White has a major threat because the e5-pawn drove the knight away from f6 to d7.  That threat is the Greek Gift Sacrifice.  If 9...cxd4??, the move 10.Bxh7+ wins for White in all lines.  Therefore, Black must play 9...f6 (to stop the Ng5 follow-up) or 9...f5 (blocking the Bishop) and in either case, if White takes on f6, the recapture with the Knight stops all shenanigans on h7.

The list of ideas goes on.  This is the true definition of UNDERSTANDING an opening.  If you truly understand am opening, you ought to be fully capable of playing it from either side.  That is me when it comes to the Kings Indian and French.  But because I hate the Grunfeld, I mostly play 1.e4 and not 1.d4 with White.  I actually do get into a Saemisch Kings Indian as White via 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.f3 g6 4.c4 Bg7 5.Nc3.  Yet I avoid the Grunfeld like the plague at all cost, because I do not "UNDERSTAND" it.

That is how you become successful at openings.  Play what you understand, not what you memorize.  And understand means you have thoroughly studied it and can play it properly.  YOUR understanding of sn opening is not the same thing as your understanding could be severely flawed.  It is all about truly understanding the CORRECT ideas behind whatever opening you are studying.

It dies not come easy, and it does not come free.  You have to invest in books and sites like chesspublishing.com.

I have a great story from about 1983 or 4, where I played this kid from U-Mass who had the black side of the Two-Knights memorized to: 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5 Bd6 11. d4 exd3 e.p. 12. Nxd3. And then he was blank. I beat him in under 25 moves after he started dithering around with moves that really didn't take advantage of black's open lines for the pawn. So if you're going to go on memory alone, you've got to have one seriously great memory. My memory is pretty bad, so I learned general themes and how to deal with certain types of attacks and setups. It took years.  

i believe this to be a false dichotomy. memorization is helpful to eventual understanding. we memorize the alphabet, we memorize our multiplication tables, we used to memorize telephone numbers.

in the science of learning it has come to be understood that memorization makes facts instantly available and thus makes a deeper understanding easier. the more factual knowledge people have about a topic, the better they can think about it critically and analytically. if i know that a move is good, even if i do not know precisely why, i will eventually come to understand the deeper implications as i progress.

you are saying that your choice is between becoming a robot mindlessly moving pieces and a critical thinker who understands. this is a false juxtaposition as there is no reason why you cannot do both and it has been scientically demonstrated that each helps the other

"Learning openings" means to answer the following question: What will I do if someone else plays the same opening against me in another game? There are two possible answers. I will play the exact same moves as last time; OR, I will play a different move at some point (this could be at move one!).

First some pre-requisites for learning openings.

1. Learn how to read and write chess notation. Reading is easy to figure out, writing takes practice.
2. Figure out how you are going to save your games, be it in a database, in a word processing document, in a loose leaf paper notebook, in bound scorebooks, or in your head. (There is a reason I gave them in that order.)
3. Purchase MCO-15 by De Firmian. Yes, books are old school; yes, MCO-15 is old (2008) even for a book. However, there's a very good reason it is currently #4 on amazon's best sellers for chess. It will retain that high rank unless and until MCO-16 comes out. Do NOT read the whole thing! Put it on your bookshelf for reference, you will need it later. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Openings-15th-Firmian/dp/0812936825

Now for the actual learning process.

1. Gather up your recent games and transfer them to your database (or whatever you are using). Online games can be downloaded, offline games you had to record them by writing them down on paper first.
2. Quickly triage your games: (I) Your opening was fine. (II) Your opening was not fine. (III) Your opening was so bad that you won't be playing *that* again.
3. Taking only the openings from "II", play through them and identify the following points:
   1. The first new-to-you move of the game. It could be move one! Usually this will be a move of your opponent, but sometimes you will have "made something up" at the board because it seemed more interesting than what you already knew.
   2. Where during the game you really had no idea what to do. Pretty much by definition this has to be after the new-to-you move.
   3. Any opening moves by either player that seemed really bad.
4. Now get out MCO and search through it identifying the following points:
   1. The *last* move in your game that appears in the book; by extension the following move is the first new-to-MCO move.
   2. The game reference nearest to your game continuation, and also the game reference (if different) in the nearest main line.
   3. Any opening moves by either player that MCO thinks is bad.
5. Compare the answers from "3" to the answers from "4".
   1. If the new-to-you move was well before the new-to-MCO move, then spend a little time in that section of MCO. You won't remember much of it, but if you remember just one additional move then you made progress. If the new-to-you move was precisely the new-to-MCO move, then congratulations, it seems you are already an expert on that opening (!).  EDIT: I wrote this part in haste, it's actually a lot trickier than I indicated here. Maybe some other commenter can expand on this.
   2. Search online for the game reference(s) you found, and play through the whole game(s). Add the game(s) to your database (or whatever). Study the game(s) for a few minutes, then go back to your own game and see if you now have a better idea of what you should have done.
   3. For the bad moves by your opponent, what was the correct way to punish it? For the bad moves by you, what were the better moves? Were any of the moves you identified as bad actually considered okay by MCO, or vice versa?

Now you are (finally) ready to answer the initial question: What will I do if someone else plays the same opening against me in another game?

What I gave is not by any means the only way to learn openings, but should be good enough to carry you through to say 1800 Elo OTB (not the same as online Elo!).