Beginner advice: Do NOT study openings (game included 2100vs2100)

@LukaCro Play long games, analyze with good players, go over annotated classical games by old masters. Don't lose too much time with blitz (as an adult), with videos, with SF and with super detailed analysis or modern games.

Blitz and Rapid are not bad, these are simply misguided recommendations. I cannot recommend Bullet though.

As an average player; or even below average player I am still trying to figure out what material to study, which should come first, is Rapid and Classical better to play versus Correspondence games, which books and games are actually helpful etc. There are endless blog and forum posts about this and digging through them is time consuming. I was under the assumption that learning openings was imperative to learn and then move to middle and end games. I guess that is incorrect? All in all, I enjoy Lichess, and reading all of your posts and opinions. Thank you for being here.

Jaran short Said do tactics, Nigel Davies said something else. And as someone posted nakamura seem to suggest something else. Also Lasker seemed to have suggested something else.

Hicetnunc the problems with annotated games is that they don't annotate everything, you already need to be strong. Even the famous move by move book by I think chernov leaves out things, and I'm sure at least students have questions that can't be answered.

And most importantly As Einstein said: knowing is not understanding.

@lucius_beach2 : I like the tournament books from alekhine. They're available and alekhine was a good writer. With some analysis error of course but also with good comments about how useful a move is or not and no endless computer variations with informator symbols. Some concepts where new at that time (like retis new opening in the new york 1924 tournament) and some not yet known, but that isn't so important to learn how masters handle middle- and endgames.

But also everyman's starting out and move by move series on different openings are game collections on a particular opening, maybe offering a basic repertoire. But mainly they're a source for not that heavy commented games.

For that i also like some videos, the annoter must tell something about the moves. There is material with relativly high quality and there of course is also much utter crap. The advance is that you can absorb some stuff while burning calories on thredmill or bicycle ergometer. ;)

It is true, that making notes for a beginner may not suffice. I have done lots of tactics. These were printed out on paper. A trainer at my local chessclub (a big, vibrant chessclub) printed them out for the people interested. I would fill in the solutions and give it back to him.

Then, classics, i learned these by reading through every book which fell into my fingers. I didnt read them because i had to, it was interesting. It is interesting for me to read chess books. I dont work through them. I open them and have fun.

I created an opening repertoire with black, Dragon against 1.e4, Kings Indian against 1.d4. With White i started with the italian game (c3, d4) (and also developed something against all the other openings). For Dragon i had a small blue book by some russian player - a collection of games, commented chessinformator style, no verbal comments. I learned reading chessnotation with this book. These games discussed the theoretical lines. For Kings Indian i had the Geller book, which is out of print, i can not believe it. Geller was an awesome theoretican. The book also had example games, some really awesome. I remember this one:

This one also made a big impression to me:

I 'worked' a lot with these two books. Meanwhile i think different about KI and Dragon, but thats another story.

Another book from which i replayed a lot of games, was Kasparovs "Test of time". There were countless other books from which i took this and that advice, some of the best advices taken from books written by unknown german FMs. I remember one book talking about "Die Schachgestalt" ("The chess being"), an aproach to looking at the own pieces as one thing.

Then, endgame books. I have had the luck to have access to quite a few (We had lots of books in our chessclub). Some of the best were not theoretical books but discussed typical endgame structures. for example endgames with one open file, flexible pawn structure, asymmetric pawn chains (eg. 3-3 versus 2-4). Which is an endgame which happens very often, eg french Rubinstein. I have worked very concentrated with an Averbakh book (solving the exercises) and with the Smyslov Loewenfish rook endgame book.

I remember a middle game book, i think it was by Karpov and another player, which discussed five types of pawn structures. The Kmoch book (pawn power in chess) later refined this knowledge.

Up to that point i never used engines - i simply had no access to computers.

Today: a big chess database compiled from different PGNs over the time, constantly updated with TWIC games, a strong engine. I save my analysis in a training database, documenting them in verbal form. Strictly spoken this is now my book. I write my own book now.

Yes it's like karate. I'm sure you can learn karate through books and videos . Do you know that karatekas do you really tough training like extrem body builders, even before it was hip.

If you think passively absorbing makes you are strong player in all respect please do so.

Do you think kasparov woke up and just had the super calculating power?

Sure, it's a nice easy way to lie to yourself. Because it's easy and I'm sure, amateurs fall into the fallacy because it sounds logical.

In my opinion becoming strong in tactics is the first step than you have the competence to judge for yourself. Otherwise you are doomed to believe what others tell you.

Maybe I'm wrong but that's my personal believe

If I remember correctly I think botvinnik implied that the first thing kasparov had was his tactical ability. But maybe I'm mixing something up.

You should study everything and play even much more.

@Subomega

I am an older guy who never studied and picked the game up again after 20 years absence.
I spent most of last year studying endgames, 2020 is my "year of analysis and tactics".
I know for a fact that I am tactically extremely weak.
Surely on the low-end of the "natural gift for tactics" spectrum.
I am currently working through Dan Heisman's "Back to Basics" and Crafty Raf's "Checkmate Patterns" as well as a book of thematic tactics for the London.
There is no way I could have learned the Checkmate Patterns on my own. Not in one million years. That book has blown my mind wide open as to how pieces actually work together to mate a King.
I'm sure many people have this gift naturally. But I don't. My brain simply isn't wired for tactics.
So, I have to get into the trenches and do the work daily and hope that it will eventually go deep into my bones and convert to actual skill during play.
If I get a handle on my inability to sustain focus throughout an entire game, I should improve markedly by the end of the year.

I will keep the community in touch, whether my "experiment" is successful or not. ;D
Others, whose focus is more on "opening theory" might also share the results of their "experiment", by year's end.
Obviously, this has no scientific value but some productive exchanges might be had.