Instructions for chess openings

First, you have to feel comfortable with all the positions of the main variations. For example, if you want to play Caro-Kann because you like the Classical System, you have to like also the Advance Variation, the Panov Attack and other White's choices. Therefore, to play the opening well, you have to improve in many type of positions. This mainly means that the opening preparation has to be done together with the learning of strategy. In addition, it would be very good to review many masters' games, since the more you study various games, the more you will discover and learn new opening systems. If you will follow these instructions you will realize that certain positions that you did not like before will feel more and more comfortable to you and you will also know better how to evaluate their consequential positions. You have to concentrate on understanding the plans of every principal variation, not to memorize the moves.  First of all, your opponent will not play like Anand or other top players, so initially it is enough to know good plans for your systems. A good method for the opening study: try to find an explanation to the move order for the opening's variations! Keep the chess board in front of you and think why it is important to make a certain move before another. With this method you will gain a better understanding of your plan and opponent's counter play, better calculation skills
move-by-move learning of the variations (develop opinion on which you like). In addition, if you will need more games for the study of your variations, you can search on ChessLive.de by positions, ELOs and year played. If you can afford it, one database with annotated games is a remarkably good help. Finally, for our chess instructions on openings, we recommend you to get a material with a lot of annotations.