Learn Powerful Chess Opening Strategies that will Benefit Your Game

Posted by IchessU on March 5th, 2015

Many seasoned chess players believe that learning openings is not necessarily a priority for beginners. While every chess player should know about basic opening principles at one point in their chess career, this shouldn't take up a great deal of a beginner's study time, because it is more important to build foundations in tactics and endgames than memorizing typical openings. This said, the importance of developing good openings cannot be denied because strong openings are what make strong middle and end games.

Picking up some openings that you can study, analyze, and make your own is a good way to learn and create powerful opening strategies. Once you have several serious games under your belt, it would help you to analyze your own moves before you can find and study opening theories that best suit the way you attack each game. Many strong players have a great number of opening theories memorized, thanks to years of experience playing other equally strong or stronger players. Today, learners have the privilege of having modern platforms to learn and play the game, from computers to specialized training software, which makes the learning process easier. Time, however, is still of the essence for many players, which is why it is best to find a practical approach to learning your openings of choice.

Finding appropriate chess opening strategies that best complements your game is job one when you want to learn powerful chess openings. As you try to choose your opening systems, study ones that will give you the exact kinds of positions worthy of the kind of middle game that you enjoy playing and know will enable you to establish a strong end game. Evans Gambit is a good example of an opening strategy that may be a good choice if you are a tactical player, but not so much if you are a highly positional player.

Another good advice to follow when learning chess openings is to not try to do too much. Learning the major lines of your openings and the basic plans for either sides is a good place to start during early stages of the game as well as learning common traps that may ruin your strategy. This will minimize early losses and help you take advantage of easy wins that careless opponents might hand straight to you, unsuspectingly or by mistake.

About the author:

Albert Fishman has been involved in teaching chess since 1996 and is part of the IchessU coaching staff.