How To Master Any Chess Opening

Introduction

In this post, we're going to discover the 6 steps to mastering your chess openings!

You see, most people have it the wrong way around...

They spend oceans of time pouring through chess books or courses, and then when they finally feel almost ready to play the opening...they 'forgot' all they learned and start the process again.

What If There Was A Better Way?

For those who prefer video to text, here's a 60-second summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl9tL020hf0

Let me share with you the 6 steps to mastering any chess opening you want to play...

1. Practice!

Who would have thought that the best way to get good at an opening is to start playing it?

I get that you're afraid of screwing up and losing.

But it's these early mistakes, and getting them out of the way fast, that will accelerate your learning and help you remember the key moves that you're forgetting right now in your games.

Nothing substitutes personal experience when it comes to this.

2. Checking Your Games

If you don't do this, you're simply going to repeat the same mistakes over and over, and not improve.

For each game you play, make sure to review the opening and see what you (or the opponent, in case you won) should have played instead!

It will be much easier to remember the key moves if they're based on your personal experience.

It also saves you countless hours wasting time learning moves you're almost never going to face.

3. Build/Learn A 'Quick Repertoire'

This is the format I now use for all my opening courses and people love it!

The 'Quick Repertoire' is where you create a skeleton of just the most important moves, until you are at a position where you are at least getting into the middlegame and knowing you are doing okay.

And it's not many variations...but it will serve as a solid foundation before diving deeper into mastery.

4. Play through 'Model Games'!

I first learned of this method from my first private chess coach, IM John-Paul Wallace.

He talked of how, by studying 'model games' - games where one side showed exactly what you should be aiming for to win the game - you can very clearly see the typical plans and ideas, learn how to punish typical mistakes, and know how you typically win from this opening (in the middlegame and endgame).

This is something I still use to this day, and I notice that, whenever I play through several model games in my openings just before a blitz session, I typically play at least 100 points above my rating.

5. Creating Opening Files

Here is where we get to the advanced parts!

Of course, as you are playing lots of high-level tournament games in the opening, at some point, people will see your games in the database, and will start preparing for you, trying to find holes in your repertoire.

The way to deal with that is to build opening files, indicating the right moves we should play at key moments.

The right depth and breadth of the file of course depends on your level. Perhaps you will be happy to simply use the file to update your knowledge based on your games.

Or, for more advanced players, you may prefer to learn new variations for lines that you find difficult to face or where you simply want some variety.

6. Preparing For Games

This is where we take our great work from the first 5 steps, and use it to specifically maximize our chances for success in our next game, against our next opponent.

Naturally this applies mainly to classical tournaments where there is time to prepare between the rounds.
We can look at our opponent's games for weaknesses in their repertoire, and then either play our 'usual' stuff that we already know very well, or prepare some kind of alternative or 'surprise' to specifically target their weaknesses.

Summary

So to summarize, the 6 steps for mastering any opening are:

1. Practice
2. Checking Your Games
3. Quick Repertoire
4. Model Games
5. Creating Opening Files
6. Preparing For Games

Next Steps

Would you like to have a similarly simple, structured process for improving the rest of your game?

If you're rated 1800+, send me your message here!