How do you train openings?

@PureProgressionFTW said in #9:

No offense but your rating pretty low to be lecturing.

The rating I have have no bearing on what I said. What I said its true, regardless of it. You only get good by investing time. 10 minutes a week per opening will take you years to start to have impact, and it wont be meaningful.

And even if you have only 3 1/2 hours a week (30 mins per opening a week) Spreading those 3 1/2 hours over 7 different openings wont make any change at all. With that little time, you better focus it in a singular topic. The higher you get, the less results you see for the invested time. If you invest virtually no time, you will get virtually no results, its just a waste of time.

But if it serves you as an example, I used the method described. Raised from about 1500 to around 2000 in about six months. Then I quitted chess for around 10 years soon after. Have not trained since.

10 min a day everyday is better than an hour or two a day & then quit. I got kids & responsibilities, plus an hour a day studying same opening for a month I think would make me hate chess.

5 minutes a day everyday is better than no study at all. And thats as irrelevant as what you said, as I never suggested quitting after an hour or 2.

I also have responsibilities. Thats why I dont train at all, nor I care to improve. I did in the past, it worked.

I was asking more about HOW like what tools people use.

There is no secret. Books, videos, the opening explorer in the site.

Also there's no such thing as 1 opening as white & 1 opening as black.

Yes, there is, as you have to invest about 4 times what you spend studying playing. And when you play, you have to alternate colors quite frequently.

If you only study an opening as white, you get the chance to play it, only, and only if the opponent follow the main line. But you dont get to play any prep as black, So you lose prep time in every single black game.

If you study one opening for each color, you have the same chance to play it as white if the opponent follows the main line, and you occasionally get to practice the black opening as well. minimizing any lost time. You eventually have to practice black, even by your own method, might as well study it simultaneously.

And what I said about getting good without putting the time on it still stands correct regardless of my rating, your rating or your responsibilities. You are not putting the time. You wont improve at all with that method. Might as well dont study at all, the results will be indistinguishable if you train 10 mins a day or dont.

"There is no secret. Books, videos, the opening explorer in the site."

Not looking for a "secret" just online tools besides chessable

"You wont improve at all with that method. Might as well dont study at all, the results will be indistinguishable if you train 10 mins a day or dont."

All or nothing thinking is why most people don't try at all

I'm sure somebody above already said smth. alike: Best training is playing. Our Opponents are our best teacher.

Playing and analyzing your games back to see what mistakes you made in the opening and some missed ideas is, in my opinion, the fastest way to improve your opening game. you don't waste time learning lines you never play against, and you should already be analyzing your games, so really this takes no time at all.

If you really want to formally learn an opening, get a chess book about it at your local library. they sometimes even give out eBook versions of them, so you don't even need to leave the comfort of your home. Everyman Chess' Move By Move series is particularly instructive on the critical lines and main ideas of openings. I myself have nearly a dozen of the books.

But then again, I'm a 1600 player trying to give advice to a 2200 player, so take this with a grain of salt.

hessable is a very good app, Chessopenings trainer is also a very good app

@PureProgressionFTW said in #9:

No offense but your rating pretty low to be lecturing.

10 min a day everyday for a year is better than an hour or two a day for a week & then quit. I got kids & responsibilities, plus an hour a day studying same opening for a month I think would make me hate chess.

First of all, don't show disrespect to players trying to actually help you - it's an ugly look. Secondly, if you're serious about learning opening theory, then no, that can't be done in 10mins a day. A focussed hour or two per week is vastly superior. There are no shortcuts.

@Orphan_X said in #16:

First of all, don't show disrespect to players trying to actually help you - it's an ugly look. Secondly, if you're serious about learning opening theory, then no, that can't be done in 10mins a day. A focussed hour or two per week is vastly superior. There are no shortcuts.

It's not disrespectful to disegard the opinion of someone who's given up on studying.

Also just basic math,10min a day IS an hour or two per week.

Again I'm asking what tools people use not ideas people have about study that they don't even implement.

@TacticalUppercut said in #15:

Thanks I'll look into that. Chesstempo is a good website, used to use it all the time back in the day but lichess tactics kinda ruined me for CT tactics

@PureProgressionFTW said in #12:

It's not disrespectful to disegard the opinion of someone who's given up on studying.
My status does not matter. If the answer I gave its correct or not, it is not due to my statue. The answer is either true or false. In this case, it is true. The opinion of Kasparov is still valid. He no longer plays, but we dont validate his opinion based on his inactive status, he knows what he is talking about.

Obviously Im not Garry, but I know you dont improve studying 10 minutes a day. I did actually studied, I did actually improved. I stopped studying. I stopped improving.

Funny enough, this translates exactly equal to any other activity you do. I practiced a song or 2 in the guitar (roughly 10 minutes). Never improved. I practiced for about an hour a day, I greatly improved. I stopped playing, I stopped improving.

Same thing happend with the game "Go"
Same thing happened when I was doing exercise.
10 minutes does not have effect, not in the short term, it takes months if you are lucky, to see any minimal change.
1 hour a day? in 2 weeks you see a big improvement. I know this. Its not an opinion, its a fact.

Not looking for a "secret" just online tools besides chessable

Huh? Chessable? You already have a very robust opening tree here on this site. You dont need to go outside.
You have a board on this site. Get a book and make the moves here.
Hit the puzzle button and you get puzzles. You can filter by theme.
You have statistics of your games broken down in sooo many ways, including by opening.
And you can also play. I dont know why the first option was to look for tools outside the site. You have everything here.
You can even make lectures with annotations, and then you can review them later.
Also, there are streamers on the site, there are already lectures about any topic you want.
I really dont know why people look outside the site. Everything is here in plain sight. Thats no secret either.

All or nothing thinking is why most people don't try at all

What? Lol. You think an hour a day is all or nothing? Thats funny. Like sad, but funny. Sunny rofl.

My rating increase of 500 points in 6 months was not due to me studying 1 hour a day. I was studying around 6 hours a day, I did it for 6 months straight with barely any days off. And that is still below half of what you would call "all or nothing". I was losing my mind already.
1 hour a day is barely mild training.
10 minutes its joke, but as I said, a sad joke.

@Alientcp said in #19:

1 hour a day is barely mild training.
10 minutes its joke, but as I said, a sad joke.

You're like someone who doesn't exercise at all mocking someone who does 20 pushups a day

From your biography it sounds like you're a dabbler, you work hard & then quit when you get burnt out, not sure what's the point of that, like you said you're no Kasparov so why you trying to talk like him?