Beg your pardon - writing error in a foreign language. After 1600 about average 1800 should mean one standard deviation above average. Thanks for giving the hint. I will correct now.
The average player of the Elo-rating system was around 1500 to 1600 when I did study rating systems. It is somewhat difficult to compare different countries. But I think numbers around 1500 are a good guess about average performance of all chess players in tournaments. For Germany this holds. Today I don't know anything about other countries.

Having read the whole topic now I want to throw in two corrections first:

1. Em. Lasker spoke about 1.000 hours of training as an assumption. And it is stunning, how correct his estimation fits to the scientific psychological research. (Edit: I have to go into my old books, which will need some time, as the source for the #1000 has to be found. #100 is wrong in any case and the #200 has been sourced and added with more content by St. Bücker. Thanks for this. - Personal remark: I hope I didn't mix up great Lasker in my memory with some remarks of Berliner and H.A.SIMON or one of his followers in the psychological research branch in my memory. Now I'm nearly 60yo and still didn't learn how to refer to a basic citation.   Anyway, this has to do with the question what is necessary to become a better player. Time is one of the variables and it hides the content to learn in this time.)

2. The whole topic is about openings for adult players, even if sandman neclected this in one post. ( ) Why do I think so?

According to my scientific education as a psychologist (with a master thesis about playing strength and two psychological learning theories btw) I rely on facts.

So what is the first step in answering a human beings question about behavior modification (aka learning, attitude changes, etc.)? You have to look at the basics of the field and the behavior of the human being.

The question here is: Which opening repertoire is good for me for becoming a better player?

Fact is: Chess has - compared with a lot of other fields - a good measure of playing strength by the Elo rating. It is much better than teacher judgements b.e. (Forgive me this truth if you're a teacher.)

Fact is: The step from 1200 to 1400 (200 is a standard deviation, so this is intentional chosen) is smaller in "knowledge units" and than 1400 to 1600 than 1600 to 1800.

Fact is: The average player is about 1600. (Edit: Stigma remerbers 1500 as intended average by Elo. So do I. The empirical data showed discrepancies to that when I went into them 30 years ago which was reflected by some then existing proposals of data monitoring by Elo to avoid inflation and deflation. Anyway ratings are a tool and misunderstood if used as a goal in this content.) 1800 is "above average" or "high average" depending on the criteria used. 2000 is at least statistical no mediocre player. (Maybe someone has another attitude about it. This is not talking about attitudes. This is talking about the normal distribution of chess skill.)

Fact is: Adults do learn completely new material slower than children. But adults knowing a field often learn faster. How comes? They can use knowledge for adding more knowledge. A chess example: Show me a player with elo 2200 and he is able to remember the game played two hours ago in a tournament. Show me a player with 1000 an he's not able to do so. This is age independent.

Fact is: If you blunder more than your opponent you will lose independent of the opening repertory.

Fact is: Chess is more than tactics, much more. (That's the main reason why experienced trainers are better than no trainer and bad trainers are worse than no trainer. - No scientific proof for that, but ...)

So the first serious answer to an adult willing to learn more about better chess by an opening reperory is frustrating, because it's a question: Show me your games and your reasoning while playing and I can give you some good advice after doing so. What are you're strengths, what are your weaknesses? (And to be honest: It's not at all honey for an ambitious human being to be asked about his weak points.)

The field of openings is more complex than the topic here let's asume. B.e. As a youngster I started playing 1.e4 with the goal to avoid complications or openings with an attack against my king. The goal was creating an open line, exchanging rooks and the queen and going as fast as possible to an equal or slightly worse endgame. It was very successful. But it hindered me getting better than 1900. 

This means: Playing open games is a shortcut advice (even if I think it is true in essence). The advice has to be more personal. The same holds for: Play whatever you have fun with. This holds if things should stay as they are.

I offer an "experiment" here:

Sandman (or someone else) annotates his last tournament games each two with black and white. He describes why using this opening and why using this move.
Two experienced trainers and two equally strong players without training experience look at the annotated games and offer their advice about:
- What to train which way?
- Which openings to play?

Someone serves as 'postbox'. I will send my assumptions about the results of the four advisors to the postbox and all will be published for further discussion here. (A lot of material: Four annotated games - Four comments - One prediction about the results.)

Who is in?

I've read the 1st one and can highly recommend it as it is strong in teaching you how to recognise or create the necessary conditions for some tactics (imo 10/10).

nyoke wrote on 10/28/09 at 19:24:55:


Well no one will ever be more than mediocre if that is not his ambition.  I would think that the desire to improve at chess would presuppose the requisite drive.  If it doesn't, then it rings a bit false, doesn't it?

The very worst teaching is that which has low expectations for the student.

@Stigma: Your Elo is the same as mine, so I can hardly tell you what you should do with any authority.  Nevertheless I maintain what I said.

@ Markovich

I did play 1.e4 e5 as a young beginner, and had some rough idea how to play the Evans Gambit (W), the 2 Knights with 4.Ng5 (both sides) and the Ruy Lopez Arkhangelsk (B). But real progress only started when I took up other, semi-open defences. Could well be a coincidence, but I stuck with what seemed to work. Now as an adult around 2200 I still score well with the Sicilian, the French and the Pirc. So after trying 1...e5 again briefly I decided I could wait, I simply didn't need another defence to 1.e4 at this point, particularly one that seemed to suit my style badly.

In the defences I play there is scope for first outplaying the opponent positionally and only then opening up the position advantageously. So I do get open positions quite often, but ideally they are already good for me by the time they open up! That's what I meant by the tactics appearing to be more evenly distributed. This "game plan" of first winning the positional battle, then opening up has become my specialty when playing Black, to the extent that 1...e5 takes away one of my main strengths.

Having said all that I must admit that I do miscalculate more often than I would like in open positions. The solution I'm trying now is simply strenous calculation training and (re)reading the classical books on attacking play. I'm thinking it should be possible to get a title with the openings I already play, and if I manage that I will consider again if switching back to 1...e5 is necessary to develop further.

P.S. I always recommend 1...e5 to improving children, and have had to learn some theory in the most popular "scholastic" lines for that purpose. So I agree with you in principle that 1...e5 is good for a player's development. 

Edit: You could even say that if my young self had Markovich as a trainer (I never really had one), I would have gotten more experience with open games and probably progressed faster! But that's history; all I can do now is make the best of the current situation. It is thought-provoking though that as a strong IM, Nigel Davies was advised by GM Psakhis that he needed experience with 1.e4 e5 to reach his goal of getting the GM title. And it worked! Maybe you're never too strong to return to the basics.

Stigma wrote on 10/28/09 at 15:29:42:


If this was happening only in very theoretical positions, it's likely that your oppoents were better prepared than you -- not surprising given your lack of prior study.  Since many of these lines are theoretical, naturally you'll have trouble if you don't prepare properly and encounter sophisticated opponents.  

But if it was happening in all sorts of positions, even those not highly theoretical, this idicates a serious deficiency in your game that will scarcely be remedied by playing the French all the time.

If chess were boxing, then open positions would be toe-to-toe slugging and less open positions would be dodging, maneuvering and jabbing.  You have to be able to swing hard in open positions, always creating threats to unbalance and out-tempo your opponent.  Tempo is the watchword.  Go toe to toe and swing as hard as John L. Sullivan.  Either you were having trouble doing this, or you were falling behind in development and/or central control from the outset, which naturally would produce situations where only your opponent could reasonably look for tactics.  Otherwise I could not imagine how the color of the pieces could possibly affect the distribution of tactical opportunities after 1...e5.

I imagine it's possible to improve without playing open positions, but I don't think it's possible to be a good player without being able to play open positions well.  That isn't necessarily the same thing as being able to play specific positions that arise from 1...e5 well, but it's rather close.  So I think that absolutely the worst reason for a developing player to give up on 1...e5 is that he tried it some, without much theoretical preparation, and didn't have success with it.

P.S. Since tactics almost invariably flow from superior activity, it seems quite strange to me that anyone would suggest that the French or the Sicilian would produce a better allocation of tactical opportunity to Black than 1...e5 would, assuming reasonably competent play by one's opponent.

P.P.S.  I read some of the posts here, not necessarily the one to which I responded, and they sound like recipes for chess mediocrity.

Sandman, the two books were:

Weteschnik - Understanding chess tactics
Yusupov - Build up your chess