Hello!
So, a big piece of advice given to newer players is "Pick an opening and learn it." I understand this, as you can focus on playing deliberately and develop logical thinking. Personally, when I started playing chess when I was a kid (shoutout to Fritz chess video games btw haha), and even now (I played very spottily throughout up until now like 10 years later, where I'm now picking it back up again), I would gravitate to openings naturally without knowing what they were named - namely the Ruy Lopez. My problem is with this advice lots of games (and especially at the lower levels with "inventing" moves in the openings, i.e. non-theory moves/inaccuracies) end up diverging from the one or two openings you are trying to stick to. Thus, the game turns into a different opening. Obviously, this isn't a huge problem, I'm not worried about it. But how exactly are you supposed to "pick" an opening to learn if most of the games you play don't end up transposing into the variation you're trying to learn? Am I supposed to learn from a move earlier, like just learn about King's Knight games in general - or even just e4 in general?
I hope this was clear, and I'd love to hear some people's thoughts on this.
My understanding of "pick an opening and stick with it" isn't that you should pick one chapter of the opening book and learn it before starting, it's that you should stick to playing the same move in the same position and not create extra difficulties for yourself by deliberately playing an Italian one game, a Ruy Lopez the next and a Queen's Gambit the game after that.
If you're playing the Sicilian as black, say, and your opponents occasionally find a way of inveigling you into some position that the books classify as a French Defence variation via some other move order, that's fine - just learn about that position if it comes up and if you can't figure out how to deal with it based on general principles. And conversely, if you're trying to learn as you play (which is good, IMO) then beyond maybe looking at the first six or ten moves of one or two main lines to get a sense of what the basic idea of the opening is, you don't want to be learning every possible line that does get classified as part of your opening on the off-chance that they'll come up - just play, and look up the position in the book or database afterwards if you felt like you were struggling to see whether there's something you missed.
There is no need to stress about variants in chess openings when you're just starting out. There is a reason why people usually start playing e4 exclusively in the beginning of their chess career, because it is the easiest way to follow the beginner's principles of occupying the center and activating your pieces. Once you get the hang of that, the rest comes naturally. The Italian, Ruy Lopez or Scotch are good choices to accomplish that.
And by the way, learning opening lines after move 5-8 has almost no merrit at all if you don't have an understanding of why a certain move is played in a particular position. So, don't worry about side lines. Just get a feeling of how your preferred opening usually ends up looking after a few moves a go from there. It's not like 800 Elo players will catch you out in an obscure side line of the Najdorf after move 20.
Just choose one opening move and play it all the time. Your opponents will respond differently and you will be able to play different types of games, allowing you to have experience in various aspects of the game - from attacking, sharp, dynamic play to playing against a weak pawn, to restrict opponents pieces, to acquire a space advantage, quiet and timid strategies with lots of maneuvering and steering to reach favorable endgames. I would recommend opening with pawn to c4 when playing with white pieces because you can reach all kinds of games: open, semi-closed and closed. And when you're playing with the black pieces, you can start by answering symmetrically (1. e4 e5, 1. d4 d5, 1. c4 c5, 1. Nf3 Nf6) or you can choose to play 1...c6 or 1...e6 followed by 2...d5 on whatever first and second move white chooses (assuming it's not some ridiculous stuff like 1. e4 and 2. Ba6 lol). That would be Caro-Kann/French defense against 1.e4 (or even against 1. d4 if white continues with 2.e4), Slav defense/Queen's Gambit Declined against 1.d4, 1.c4 and 1. Nf3, and against uncommon opening moves you would reach a great position with little to no trouble.
It was this piece of advice along with "only stick to e4, d4, or c4" that led me to look into unorthodox openings; granted, that's counterintuitive...thus I found 1.Nc3 which is labeled as a transposition tool...however, there is a substantial book that helps give proof that it's a definitive opening.
That being said, I hated the idea of learning all of the responses to e4 or something, so I went with something where I would be the one booked up, not my opponent.
One idea is opening books that explain with ideas what happens if you stray from the main line. They are quite educative. There are also opening encyclopedias that have explanations for different lines, but with moves and board positions only so they are sometimes difficult to understand.
You can get quite far by knowing some of the main openings only 5-8 moves deep, and more importantly by playing according to good opening principles (control the center, develop your pieces to active squares, keep your king safe, avoid hanging pieces, thinking about what you want the position to look like, and by considering your own candidate moves and your opponent's replies from both a tactical and positional standpoint).
Often when an opponent strays from the mainline our first impulse is to try to punish them. If there isn't a tactical opportunity to do so (because they blundered), then you're just better off developing for a good position in which case the chances will appear later in the game.
Gravitating towards openings on your own, by just playing chess from move 1 instead of playing a game of repeat what you saw, is actually a good way to figure out what openings and positions you do like. If the position makes sense to you and you like it, you can always then do a little digging to find out what opening it is and some of the ideas behind it.
The main point of an opening is to get to a middlegame where you understand the position and have a good chance to win. To that end, I always encourage thinking about pawn centers types and how to get to those positions as the themes will be similar. The main pawn center types (keeping in mind the pawn chains can point in different directions like to the kingside or to the queenside) are:
- Closed center: Each player's pawns are locked and unable to advance, thus blocking the lines for bishops, rooks and queen.
- Open center: There are no pawns in the center and lines and diagonals are open for the pieces.
- Mobile center: One side has two or more united pawns in the center and endeavours to advance them.
- Fixed center: The position of the pawns in the center is in one way or another fixed and not easily changed.
- Dynamic center: The pawn position in the center is not resolved and may transpose into one of the other types.
Knowing which type of pawn centers you like will help to direct your opening play and strategies, and give you something to aim for when you're "out of book" and there's no obvious tactical threats/opportunities. Those pawn centers all have different feels to the game and different ideas on how to play regarding best placement of the pieces, weak squares to target, potential pawn breaks to leverage, and whick side of the board you will likely play on.
I'm not sure how to edit posts or reply to any of you individually, but know that I appreciate the thoughtful responses, everyone!
It really depends on your strengths and likenesses as a chess player. As a very rough guide:
Are you good at tactics and do you like attacking your opponent right away? Then 1.e4 might be the move for you.
Are you a more calm, strategic kind of player and like to exploit your opponents positional weaknesses? Then 1.d4 might be a better choice.
1.c4 and 1.Nf3 a very similar to 1.d4 in nature. But as I said, this is only very rough, one can also play attacking chess with 1.d4 and vice versa. The best thing to do is to experiment with different openings and find one that suits your style, which has the benefit that you also experience different middle game positions (see above).
I personally play 1.d4 and usually choose some kind of Catalan setup, depending on my mood and opponent.