You really don't need to know that much about openings. I got to 1 700 without actively trying to memorize stuff. I know a little bit about Najdorf, superficial knowledge at best, as black because that could be the most sharp stuff I play. I know a little bit about things I play, but in general all of that is mostly less than 10 moves long, and the little knowledge I have... well it comes from playing mostly and analyzing my games (that includes looking for some opening mistakes by looking at the opening explorer after the game).
Give an example where you think you lost a game because of the opening, so we can go through it.
I see that you've lost some games in a row. That happens from time to time. You start doubting yourself and it all adds up. When that happens, stop playing for a while, look through your games.
Winning a game at 1400 rating is literally impossible.
I'm around ~1600 in both rapid and blitz and I know next to no opening theory. I'm always out of book by around move 4 or even before it if someone plays an uncommon opening or move order. So, you can still expect to gain a bit more rating before having to study openings deeply. I do feel like I'm starting to plateau now though.
It's virtually every game.
blujay58 vs. PatrickHockstetter | Analysis - Chess.com - lost because I didn't understand not to move my knight to c6 in the Ponziani Gambit. It all went downhill from there, I took a free pawn without understanding the opening fully. My accuracy in this game was 25%.
Chess: Rucho01 vs PatrickHockstetter - 52845022001 - Chess.com - I blundered this game late, but I also lost heavily in the opening because I tried to push my pawns to block in his white square bishop but it all went wrong. Just fundamentally didn't understand how to stop the King's Indian.
PatrickHockstetter vs. Gatwib | Analysis - Chess.com - a French which turned into a Sicilian? My opponent completely dominated me here, I didn't stand a chance.
Growball vs. PatrickHockstetter | Analysis - Chess.com - this opening confused me so much.
Game 1: Ok, Nc6 looks like an inaccuracy but it is nothing special. Bxf7 loses the game for white. You should just take the bishop. If he plays Qf3, Nf6 saves the knight and white has nothing. There is no danger, look at the position after Kxf7, white has no pieces out, there is no attack. So this game wasn't lost by the opening knowledge, but because you were afraid to take a free piece.
Game 2: You did make a mistake. But the mistake is conceptual above anything else. Playing d5 and e5 is reasonable when playing against fianchettoed bishop, you take the center with your pawns. But e4 is an overkill. You always have to consider will you compromise your center by pushing pawns.
If you really wish to blunt fianchettoed bishop, it is easier to achieve with c6. You always have to consider every pawn move carefully, as they are not coming back. But, even with that, you lost the game in the endgame, after having a good position. So the opponent played far from perfect. It is just when you lose a few games, you feel powerless to stop that trend.
Game 3: Not really that bad in the opening. The opponent pushed pawns, and I can easily go wrong here, but his 11. ...Bxe4 is a huge blunder because after Qd4 you are attacking a bishop and g7, and he loses something, at least a piece. So, this has nothing to do with an opening, and the game afterwards was pretty wild and both of you made mistakes.
Game 4: Nb8 that early is a move that has to be considered carefully as well. After all, you are gibving 2 free moves in the opening to your opponent and you have the black pieces. You had to take that active knight earlier. Ok on Ba5 move you couldn't do it, but instead of Nb8, you simply take the active knight and play Ne7. It is certainly more natural way to play than Nb8.
So, don't fret, your opening knowledge is certainly sufficient.
I've beaten 2400's and I still dont know much opening theory. More important than memorization is actual understanding of the game.
Focus on important skills like tactics and strategy and endgame play.
After every game, win lose or draw try to look through the game yourself and figure out your mistakes. People often just play games and move on, and dont learn from them.
Good luck
Those 1400+ rated people you’re playing, regardless if they’re memorizing theory or not, probably have tons of exposure to different openings through gameplay alone. Most of us are sliding by on intuition and things we pick up on organically
Most players do misstakes and blinders all the time. The hard thing is to spot it and to know how to respond to it. Like watch Naroditskys speedrun serie where he destroys 2000 rated players because of the misstakes. You will pick up a lot of ideas if you watch his videos.
Also know I watched your 2 latest losses. You have to analyze your losses to learn how you could do better next time. If you play 10 min games dont be afraid to use time instead of doing a bad move. Like if you play a game and then resign with 9 min left out of 10, then it is better to spend more time. If you spend half time early and win a piece you can usually speed up later. Because trading down is more simple to calculate and is usually a bit faster. But the point is more that you should look at how much time you have left when resigning and think how you could used the time better.
I would advice you to work on tactics every day (but don't guess...really try to be sure... otherwise just sit on your hands and think).
Start learning some basic Endgame stuff.
Then look at every game you play with the analysis feature (get familiar with how you mess things up...😁).
I'm posting here because no matter what I do, I cannot beat players rated 1400 or above...
1400-level chess.com players most certainly do make mistakes (and are possible to win against), but I will admit that sometimes it can REALLY feel like players a few hundred points higher are impossible to beat.
If you really did achieve a consistent rating of 1400 without much knowledge above your "instinct chess" then you are indeed a pretty decent player compared to the average. Everyone's rating progress (and what it takes to reach certain rating levels) looks slightly different, but personally it looked like just playing a huge sample size of games when I was starting out, analyzing each game with the computer afterwards to find and fix mistakes and this got me more-or-less to 1200. From there, I continued this with learning theoretical endgames and grinding with this knowledge put me around 1400 rating consistently. By the time I was a year into chess.com, my rating was roughly 1500 - which I still remember how happy I was to reach 
Everyone is different though, most chess.com players never even reach 1400, but it is certainly possible. The 'real' positional chess doesn't even come up until roughly 1800 rating! (by 'real positional chess' I mean positional considerations and adjustments such as various pawn structures and long-term plans actually becoming decisive in many games; things like outposts are also positional in nature, but to a lesser scale and those I grasped around the time I was 1600; not to say I was utilizing them optimally, but at least it was part of my decision-making-process.
How much have you played chess.com before chess.com? I ask because your current account isn't even a month old yet. You might not have played enough of a sample size to really have stabilized your rating consistently yet. That might also play some factor too.
I'm posting here because no matter what I do, I cannot beat players rated 1400 or above...
1400-level chess.com players most certainly do make mistakes (and are possible to win against), but I will admit that sometimes it can REALLY feel like players a few hundred points higher are impossible to beat.
If you really did achieve a consistent rating of 1400 without much knowledge above your "instinct chess" then you are indeed a pretty decent player compared to the average. Everyone's rating progress (and what it takes to reach certain rating levels) looks slightly different, but personally it looked like just playing a huge sample size of games when I was starting out, analyzing each game with the computer afterwards to find and fix mistakes and this got me more-or-less to 1200. From there, I continued this with learning theoretical endgames and grinding with this knowledge put me around 1400 rating consistently. By the time I was a year into chess.com, my rating was roughly 1500 - which I still remember how happy I was to reach Everyone is different though, most chess.com players never even reach 1400, but it is certainly possible. The 'real' positional chess doesn't even come up until roughly 1800 rating! (by 'real positional chess' I mean positional considerations and adjustments such as various pawn structures and long-term plans actually becoming decisive in many games; things like outposts are also positional in nature, but to a lesser scale and those I grasped around the time I was 1600; not to say I was utilizing them optimally, but at least it was part of my decision-making-process.
How much have you played chess.com before chess.com? I ask because your current account isn't even a month old yet. You might not have played enough of a sample size to really have stabilized your rating consistently yet. That might also play some factor too.
I've played here and on lichess.org consistently for around 3 years. That is, at least an hour every day.
Yeah all right, 3 years is certainly enough to stabilize your rating there, but chess.com ratings compared to lichess is known to be a few hundred points tougher for most rating levels on average (some have tracked the difference in rating through statistics - it would appear that at the highest levels (like 2000+ rating) lichess and chess.com ratings are more closely related, but not so at lower levels.
For most players, I'd estimate 200 points difference between the sites. A player who is 1400 on lichess is roughly equal in strength to a 1200 on chess.com; no way to tell until you stabilize enough on chess.com, but regardless of what the rating numbers indicate, what I stated earlier (regarding playing tougher players sometimes feeling impossible) remains unaffected.
My perspective, after over 500 10-min Rapid games in the 1300-1500 range.
Game #1 blujay58
As a matter of coincidence I have played two games against that same opponent. Both games followed unusual paths, because blujay favors playing unorthodox lines. I ended up losing the game where I got an advantage in the opening and won the game where I got destroyed in the opening. Back to your game.
From your perspective, the game is lost because you were unfamiliar with the opening, but that’s only half the story. The other half is you not using your time to find the best move.
Your opponent plays 5. Bxf7+, a very aggressive sacrifice that puts you under a lot of pressure. It’s also a massive blunder if you can find the best move. You spent only 19 seconds on this move, which is simply not enough, and you basically lose the game right there. After 7. d6, the position is +1.50, which at this level means that it’s still a game, not equal but far from over. You have two decent options to play, Kxf7 or cxd6 and more than 8 minutes to find either of them. It took you 13 seconds to play a move that was neither of them.
Suggestion: take your time for each move
Game #2 Rucho01
After 31. Kg4, you are losing. After 32. Rd2+ (7 seconds later), you are pretty much lost. At the moment of resignation you have 6:40 on the clock, time you could have spent looking for better moves. A shame, because the first 30 moves of the game were not bad.
Game #3 Gatwib
Your opponent didn’t completely dominate you. You fought well.
Game #4 Growball
The opening confused you but that didn’t impact the game: you did really well. You lost the game, obviously, on move 12. With 8 minutes and 38 seconds on the clock, you used only 9 seconds and immediately lost the game!
Feedback
Every rating comes with its own challenges, but the one you are in now is the first big challenge. You blunder less, but so do you opponents. Your grasp of tactics is decent enough, but so are your opponents. You understand chess (more or less), but so do your opponents. Relative differences become important and you can’t afford mistakes anymore.
After looking at these four games, it looks like your openig knowledge is not the issue. it’s your time management. Three out of these four games could have had a different outcome if you paid attention at the right time. It’s not guaranteed you would have found them all, but your results would have been better. From what I’ve seen, you can get above 1400, without a doubt. But you can’t afford giving games away because you blunder after 10 seconds or less.
Good luck!
I was led to believe that you don't need to memorise opening lines in order to succeed at chess
Advice givers are typically overzealous about this point, and yeah, they will go so far as to say you don't need to know anything about the opening until ____ rating.
Their intentions are good... they say this because it's very VERY common for new players to waste a lot of time memorizing openings. Probably everyone has done it to some extent, and realized it's stupid afterwards.
But the truth is it's best to be a well rounded player no matter what your rating is. So in the beginning the opening principles are enough. As a player gets closer to 1000 IMO they should compare each game (after they play it) to an opening database to see who left book first and what the normal options are. Only spend 5-10 minutes at most, but could even take less than 1 minute. This way they start learning about the openings they see most often and don't waste time with stuff no one ever plays.
This way, by the time they're ~1400, they will know the first 5-10 moves in the majority of openings they encounter, which is of course useful.
Growball vs. PatrickHockstetter | Analysis - Chess.com - this opening confused me so much.
Ok, well, on move 13 you had 1 piece developed, and what the hell was move 7.
You don't get to ignore the opening principles just because you're 1400...
I am not them, but the above post sounds overly critical of ...Nb8 (although I admit, not the best move). I suspect Black simply feared 8. b4 and b5 coming soon with a tempo on the Knight when White has gained space perceived as dangerous.
White playing b4 isn't dangerous enough to have to "react" to, but I believe this is what they likely thought.
Perhaps you might find my recent YT video on exploiting pawn pushing helpful. (I'm newer to streaming, so hopefully it is more useful than time consuming). In summary, pawns can't move back like pieces can, so White playing b4 will have long-term consequences...consequences which Black might be able to exploit in the future.
I'm posting here because no matter what I do, I cannot beat players rated 1400 or above. I consider myself a pretty good player,
First of all, nice click-bait title
Keep in mind that most lower-rated players overestimate their abilities while most higher-rated players underestimate theirs. You'll often hear a sub-1500 player say "I'm pretty good" while a 2200+ player will say "I'm pretty bad". It is a bit like the evolution of a programmer: the more experience you have, the more you realize you know almost nothing!
I play what you would call 'instinct' chess - I don't know a single opening really and I simply count the pieces and look at what a good move might be. Using this I managed to achieve 1400 rating, but now I am on a steady downward trajectory.
"Instinct chess" is another way of saying "Hope Chess". We'll take a look at your games in a minute.
I simply cannot win a game against a 1400+ player. Not only do these players use an array of exotic openings, destroying any of my attempts to understand theory, but they also never make a bad move. I have recently watched 1400 players make 10-15 perfect moves in a row which endanger all my pieces, it is simply a matter of time until I can't keep up. I am talking about games in which 10-15 moves are completely forced by the other player, I don't even get a chance to respond.
It is very rare that a sub-1500 player will play a perfect game. It can happen from time to time if you make it easy for them, but by and large they are 1400 because they lack tactical skills.
I was led to believe that you don't need to memorise opening lines in order to succeed at chess, but the reality is somewhat different. I feel as though unless I start to deeply study the Sicilian, the Caro Kahn, the Kings Indian etc. I simply do not stand a chance at this level.
You do not need to memorize openings. You need to understand opening principles and be aware of tactics. Those 2 things alone will push you to at least 1500 (some may even say as high as 2000). But, lets take a look at a couple of your games:
In this game, your opponent did not know the opening (otherwise he would have known that the immediate Nxe5 is bad!). You just ignored tactics.
In this game, you neglected your development and lashed out in the center leading to a lost position.
In this game, you neglected your development, went for a tactical shot and then hung your queen.
The problem in all of these games is the same: You are neglecting your development, playing the opening on autopilot, and not paying attention to tactics. This is common for players in the sub-1300 range. When you fix those problems, you will be able to beat players in the 1400-1500 range.
I'm posting here because no matter what I do, I cannot beat players rated 1400 or above. I consider myself a pretty good player, I don't regularly blunder and I use tactics well, I don't rush my games, I understand chess principles, I check my moves and my opponent's moves before proceeding, etc...
I play what you would call 'instinct' chess - I don't know a single opening really and I simply count the pieces and look at what a good move might be. Using this I managed to achieve 1400 rating, but now I am on a steady downward trajectory.
I simply cannot win a game against a 1400+ player. Not only do these players use an array of exotic openings, destroying any of my attempts to understand theory, but they also never make a bad move. I have recently watched 1400 players make 10-15 perfect moves in a row which endanger all my pieces, it is simply a matter of time until I can't keep up. I am talking about games in which 10-15 moves are completely forced by the other player, I don't even get a chance to respond.
I was led to believe that you don't need to memorise opening lines in order to succeed at chess, but the reality is somewhat different. I feel as though unless I start to deeply study the Sicilian, the Caro Kahn, the Kings Indian etc. I simply do not stand a chance at this level.