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How to Learn an Opening by S. Evan Kreider It has been said many times before, but it still bears repeating: too many people make the mistake of trying to learn an opening by memorizing it. They sit down with MCO or the like, play through the various lines of the opening’s theory, and try to memorize these lines in the abstract, so that they’ll be able to play them by rote during their over-the-board games. This approach invariably meets with failure. First, unless you have a photographic memory and total recall, you’ll never be able to retain all that abstract information. Second, even if you do have a computer-like memory, there comes a point in the game when you’ll reach the end of the opening line, that series of moves which you’ve spewed out by rote, and then you’ll have no idea what to do next, and probably throw away your small theoretical advantage with a single thoughtless move. Nonetheless, at a certain point in a chess player’s career, there comes a level of play that will prove extremely difficult without having some opening theory to rely on. At such a point, you will have to know your openings and remember the various opening lines, at least to a point. But this is not accomplished through brute memorization. It is accomplished through understanding and experience. Once you truly understand an opening, with all its aims and typical plans, and have acquired a certain degree of experience with it, the moves will come to you naturally. The first thing you need to do, when you decide to learn a new opening, is to get some good books on it. An opening book worth studying should meet two criteria. First, it should contain a certain amount of theory; i.e., it should show you the majority of lines that you can expect to encounter, and give you an indication of some potential side-lines and oddities. However, it needn’t be absolutely theoretically complete. It’s okay if there are some obscure lines that aren’t fully covered. You probably won’t deal with them very often, and if necessary you can research them in a more comprehensive opening reference, such as MCO, NCO, ECO, or one of the various openings databases which are available. Second, and much more importantly, your opening book should explain the ideas, concepts, and strategies behind the opening. It should explain the rationale behind the various moves. It should give you an idea of what sorts of middlegames will arise, and how to play them. It should give you an idea of the various sorts of plans that each side might consider. It should explain the various sorts of advantages and disadvantages each player can expect to acquire. And it should explain how each opening move contributes to all these things. In other words, it should explain the opening so that you can understand it; not merely list the opening moves so that you can memorize them. Once you’ve found your books, you should read through them one time only, carefully, making sure that you understand the material presented (as well as you can with only one careful reading), but without trying to memorize anything (anything you try to memorize the first time through won’t stick anyway). The way to learn the lines is through experience with them, and this is achieved by playing tons of games. Even rapid games can be useful for this purpose: blitz chess is extremely popular at the various online chess severs, so you'll never want for opponents! You can log on and play a dozen or so games at a time, often in less than an hour total, and start building some familiarity with the typical responses your opening choice will face. Then, after every game, get your books out, and see how far you made it before you went out of book. Then see what the next move or two is, and review the relevant information on the typical plans, strategy, tactics, etc., in this line. Also try to determine why it is that the move you chose isn't as good as theory. In both cases, try to make sure you understand the ideas behind the moves. Over time, you’ll discover that you are getting farther and farther into your games before going out of book, and developing a more and more sophisticated understanding of the opening. Along this line, a good learning strategy is to play a bunch of quick partial games against a computer program with a good opening book. Fritz is one example of a good program for this purpose: it has an excellent and diverse opening book, and can be set to play a wide variety of openings and lines within those openings. Play the opening of the game until you get to the point where you can’t remember the next opening move. Then analyze the position, and try to figure out the best move. Then consult your books and see whether or not you guessed correctly, and (again, here’s the really important point) if not, why not. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say I’m learning the Spanish game. I’ve read my books, I understand the concepts and strategies behind the opening (reasonably well anyway, after having read the books only once through, carefully). I’ve played a handful of games so far, and looked through them afterwards to see where I went out of book, and what I should have played instead. At this point, I play a game against Fritz, and I get this far before I’m stumped: 1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 Nc6, 3.Bb5 a6, 4.Ba4 Nf6, 5.O-O Be7, 6.Re1 b5, 7.Bb3 d6, 8.c3 O-O. Now what should I do? I know that, in proper classical style, one of my objectives as White is to try to secure the classical pawn duo at e4 and d4. I’ve prepared d4 with c3, so it’s time to play d4, right? Wrong! When I consult my books, I see that 9.d4 falls prey to the irritating 9…Bg4! The pin on my knight makes it difficult to support my pawn at d4, and if Black plays well, (s)he should be able to undermine my center. That’s why d4 is usually preceded by 9.h3!, preventing Black’s ...Bg4 pinning move, and allowing the now solid 10.d4. Notice that since I understand what makes the various moves good or bad, and since I have developed some experience with the opening (after all the painful games where my 9.d4 leads to a weak center and an awful middlegame, and all the pleasant games where my 9.h3 and 10.d4 leads to a solid center and a strong middlegame), I’ll be able to remember to play 9.h3 and 10.d4 much more easily. The learning strategies described above will probably suffice for the average amateur. However, there are a couple of other strategies for those who have the time, energy, and interest in learning openings even more rigorously. In Teach Yourself Better Chess, William Hartston suggests collecting a sample of at least a dozen (and ideally as many as a hundred) complete grandmaster games in the opening which you are trying to learn, and play though them all quickly. As you move through the games, you will start to recognize various moves, positions, maneuvers, strategic and tactical themes, typical attacks, etc. common to the opening. This is a good strategy for absorbing specific lines through repetition while still basing your knowledge on understanding rather than brute memorization. Similarly, in his article “Improving Your Chess,” Ken Smith suggests turning to the index of variations of your opening book, and playing through the main lines (skipping the variations and sidelines) over and over again until you have them memorized. Then move on to the most common variations, and play through them repeatedly until you have them memorized. Then turn to the next most common variations, and repeat the process. (We even have a downloadable PGN file of ECO Opening Variations you can use for this purpose!) This strategy is definitely more memorization-dependent than the others described here, and may not be for everyone; however, some people benefit from rote learning and repetition, and this strategy may be useful for them, but it should be accompanied by the other strategies above so that the memorization will be grounded in understanding and experience. If you follow these strategies, then as time goes by, you'll find that you have more and more opening knowledge: not merely of general opening principles and middlegame strategies, but also of specific lines of opening theory; and you'll have learned this and be able to remember specific opening moves not through rote memorization, but through study which involves understanding, supported and reinforced by experience. Continue this process. Re-read your opening books carefully, maybe once a year or so. Play through more grandmaster games in those openings. Run through your opening lines and variations quickly before each game you play. All of this will serve to reinforce and improve your understanding of the opening strategies, resulting middlegames and how to play them. Over time, you’ll master the opening, play some devastating games, and score some impressive wins. Copyright 2002 S. Evan Kreider. Used with permission.
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