dear aftermath

Switch to 1. d4

any exchange black offers, take it. othewise develop each of your pieces by
just moving them once each until all are developed. you do this you are no
longer 1400, but 1600

this seems like it doesn't need saying, but against your fellow 1400s it
does, no?

don't get fancy with tactics until you play enough to do so confidently,
which is 1700 level... any other advice is likely not from 1700+ level
opposition

forget openings, do opening principals - very hard to confuse yourself
thereby - and what I describe is a general Torre set-up, and it hardly
matters what the other guy does - try to win the middle-game and don't study
endings either

try it, and tell us how it goes

Phil

"Aftermath Fan" wrote in message
...
I'm a sub-1400 player and am not spending much time studying openings
(I'm working on tactics, as per near-universal advice).

However, I need to have *some* opening repertoire, even if it's only a
few plys deep. It's all well and good to say "play 1. e4!" and I do,
but of course, about 50% of the time I have the black pieces and my
opponent doesn't always cooperate :-)

My overall time to devote to chess is somewhat limited by other things
in life and it seems to me that at my level, trying to work through
"The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" or something would not be the
best use of my time.

So at the moment, if we play a symmetrical King's pawn game, I feel
I'm OK. I go for the Scotch Game or the Ruy Lopez and have played
with the King's Gambit. I don't really care much about the up-to-date
theoretical status of each subvariation at move thirteen because the
odds are that either I or my opponent will lose material to a tactical
trap before then. I know my way around the Scandanavian and Petroff
at a basic level. I hate people who play the Giuco Piano "old
stodge" ;-) I'm not as good at these openings as Black though it
probably doesn't matter. I run into the Philidor a lot for some
reason.

But what to play against...

...the Sicilian as white? Or perhaps to play as black?
...the Caro-Kann as white?
...1. d4 as black?
...1. c4 as black? (yes, I run into people who play this at my
level...dumb, perhaps, but people do)
...the French as white?

I don't run into the Pirc or Alekhine's very much, though there are
certain players who alway set up with various Indian defenses...I
don't worry about those at this point.

Just looking for a basic first few moves to cover the various
situations. I felt like a retard on ICC the other day when I was
black and the game went 1.d4 d5 2. c4 and I had to sit there and burn
clock trying to figure out what to do next ;-)

If there is a list of "here's a basic opening repertoire for the class
D or E player", I would love to see it.

Thanks.