Helo, i am confused...how should i know what opening should i learn as WHITE i play 1.e4 ...so black chooses the opening? so i must know sicilian and complete 1.e4 system?
i am so confused how many opening i must know? ??
please please please clear it up for me once and for all..
As white you open but black chooses the opening, white can sometimes decide what kind of opening variation though.
With e4 you would need to prepare against sicilian, 1.e5 systems (decide if you want to play scotch/king's gambit/italian/spanish opening against e5) , the french, the caro kahn, The scandinavian,the modern defense , the pirc defense and very rare the owen's defense.
If you open with d4, you have to prepare against queens' gambit declined or accepted systems if you play c4 if black answers d4 with d5. If black answers with f5 you have to know what to do against that ( the Dutch) and if black plays Nf6 instead of d5 there also a myriad of openings combined with that, Trompowsky, Benoni, Benko Gambit, other gambits associated with c5, King's indian Defense, Queen's Indian defense, Nimzo Indian.
Other moves also have a lot of theory behind it. But better is to chose some variations and just start playing, often the opening is not the most important part of amateur play. Being good in playing any opening position is, something you will get with experience.
"i am so confused how many opening i must know? ??"
I'm lazy so I have found a way to know as few openings as possible. As White I always play the King's Indian Attack. As Black, if White moves e4 then I play the Sicilian Defense, preferably the Najdorf Variation. If White chooses any other 1st move I play the King's Indian Defense.
Using this method I only need to know 2 openings. The King's Indian and the Black side of the Sicilian.
Some people would say it's wrong to not explore other openings. I would rather be lazy.
Go to your profile » Chess insights» Average centipawn loss by Opening. Look at the openings you play.
Study your highest centipawn loss opening by reading about that opening. This will help you improve your personal opening repertoire.
Learn some chess principles to improve your positional moves.
In the opening, why move a pawn that does not free a Bishop? Moving two pawns is basically all you need to mobilize your pieces.
Gaining space by moving lots of pawns is only a temporary advantage and those pawns can no longer defend the space they left behind. So that means you pieces will become passive if they must defend the weakened squares.
Don't try to memorized an opening, like it was a lottery number.
I prefer to memorize some common pawn structures and know their weak squares.
If you want to know as little theory as possible, I would recommend against playing 1. e4 unless, as #3 pointed out, you play the KIA. It's worth noting that the KID is often very tempo-dependent so the difference between the KIA and KID can be substantial in certain cases, though. And I'm sure many KID players would tell you that playing the KID without knowing your theory is a good way to get crunched.
Most people recommend against playing 1. d4 "system" openings like the Colle or London if your aim is to improve, but if you really want to be lazy as white, that's a pretty straightforward way of doing it. In the Colle-Koltanowski especially, pretty much no matter what, your first 10 moves will be d4, Nf3, e3, c3, Bd3, Nbd2, O-O, Qe2, dxc5, and e4 if they are possible. As far as I know, that's the absolute laziest way you can play the opening as white without losing.
