Changing Openings

For a number of weeks now I've been considering changing my preferred opening as White. I've been playing the Catalan for somewhere between six months and a year and I think I might have absorbed as much as I can. I still get into certain variations that make absolutely no sense to me, where the computer says I'm better but I can't figure out why and I keep losing games.

I used to play the Najdorf Sicilian as Black against 1. e4 and I eventually changed from that for a similar reason. The Najdorf is one of the most common and heavily analyzed openings in chess, so a lot of stronger players tell you to avoid it because there's so much theory that it's impossible to remember it all. At higher rating levels maybe you need to worry about that, but at my level just getting the basic ideas and common moves down is usually enough to be competitive. No, my problem was that when I got into very sharp, tactical positions (which happened in most games), the computer would point out tactical errors I had made but even after examining long lines I couldn't figure out why they were mistakes. I was being told by the computer not to play certain moves, but I didn't understand why and all of my human analysis was telling me they were good moves. Rather than learning from my mistakes I was just getting more confused. After a certain amount of this I became frustrated and decided that the Najdorf was not the opening for me, and I was going to play something else where if I made a mistake I would at least understand what I did wrong.

I started playing the Catalan as White partly because even though it isn't a system opening like the London or the King's Indian Attack you can play it against many Black responses to 1. d4, so it's pretty flexible. For a long time even when I wasn't winning with it I felt like I was learning a lot about common pawn structures that arose from it, and I had a feeling that once I truly grasped it I would obtain valuable knowledge that would help me in many 1. d4 openings.

Unfortunately instead what I learned is that in certain variations that was true, but in other equally common variations I ended up surrendering a pawn that I never got back. The computer kept telling me in these variations that White was fine, often better, despite the material deficit, but again I could never figure out why. I kept going over games in these variations, but even after looking at a number of games where White won I could never understand what White was doing in the opening that produced the victory; I would always wonder why Black entered the line that he did, since it looked like he had a much better move that he didn't play, the type of move that my opponents were playing against me for which I had no answer.

I feel like it's time to move on. I spent a lot of time trying to overcome my lack of understanding but I think I've reached the point of diminishing returns with the Catalan. By playing it for as long as I did I think I learned some stuff that will be applicable to other 1. d4 openings, and by changing to something else I can hopefully avoid those positions that I don't understand no matter how much I analyze them.

Most likely as I try to learn another opening I will lose some games because of a basic misunderstanding of how the new opening works. This is unavoidable and expected. If you could switch openings and instantly understand your new one inside and out there would be little value in learning one favored opening in the first place. If I'm going to lose games (and we all lose many games) all I want is to be able to understand what I did wrong and try to correct my errors in future games. If I can't do that in one opening but maybe could in another, then it makes sense to switch. The time has come.