Answers.Body: <p>This is a really vague question, so my attempt at an answer will have to be similarly vague. Hope it helps.</p>
  <p>An old book that I still think is one of the best on the general subject of openings is &quot;How To Open A Chess Game&quot; from RHM Press. It's a series of essays (the first couple of which will be really elementary) from GMs on the subject of opening play. Here's a link to a used copy - <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31036123248&amp;cm_sp=det-%5C_-bsk-%5C_-bdp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31036123248&amp;cm_sp=det-\_-bsk-\_-bdp</a></p>
  <p>John Watson's 4-volume set (Mastering The Chess Openings) has some generic opening info in the early parts of v1 and at the end of v4 there's a section on choosing and preparing openings. But together they're only 50 pages, give or take, so it may be a bit much to pay for that little.</p>
  <p>Reuben Fine's Ideas Behind The Chess Openings is a bit dated, but you may find it useful. It covers some plans and ideas for openings in vogue a half-century ago. (Move sequences go out of favor much faster than ideas and plans, so while a variation may have changed from the time of writing, the ideas behind the moves will probably not.</p>
  <p>But if the age (and likely the Descriptive Notation) of that book puts you off, Gary Lane did one about &quot;Modern Openings&quot; but that's also at least 25 years old.</p>
  <p>There's also a Mark Dvoretsky book, Opening Preparation (it was later re-released as part of his School Of Future Champions series). I'm not sure if you're used to Mark Dvoretsky, but his books require a lot of work from the reader; he's a professional trainer and expects you to put in the work rather than try to spoon-feed the information to you. Lots of good info, but not for the faint-hearted. The author credit on it varies with the edition; it was put together with Artur Yusupov, so I've seen credit given solely to Dvoretsky, solely to Yusupov, and jointly to both, so check under each author if you're having trouble locating it. It can get pricey, but's here's a link to the first appearance of it: <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30747626141&amp;cm_sp=det-%5C_-bsk-%5C_-bdp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30747626141&amp;cm_sp=det-\_-bsk-\_-bdp</a></p>
  <p>Dvoretsky also has another book, Opening Developments, from his School of Chess Excellence series, but I'd advise starting with the first one to see if you have the taste for his style. FWIW, I really like his books, but I've heard complaints from enough others to acknowledge they're an acquired taste, not necessarily suitable for all.</p>
  <p>All of these books are less about memorizing a list of moves than they are about understanding and selecting variations. Try a lot of different openings, see which ones &quot;fit your hand&quot; best, and after that start settling in to build a repertoire from the lines that work for you. These books are more about that than they are about giving you a list of the principal lines of the Mar Del Plata or Kan variation to memorize and regurgitate at the board. Since the question was worded vaguely, I focused my answer more on books that would be useful no matter which particular variations you played, as there are literally thousands of variations that would fall under your original wording.</p>
  <p>If you were interested in something a little more concrete,
  Mikhail Shereshevsky had a book, The Soviet Chess Conveyor, that had some good advice about constructing a repertoire, but it suffered badly from either its translation or its editing (not sure which, but it was a bear to work out what the author was trying to say). I'll not include a link to it; you can find it if you're determined. But most of what he had to say about the opening can also be found in the first chapter of The Shereshevsky Method, published by New In Chess, and which also includes material from his utterly fantastic Endgame Strategy -- <a href="https://www.newinchess.com/en_US/the-shereshevsky-method-to-improve-in-chess" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.newinchess.com/en_US/the-shereshevsky-method-to-improve-in-chess</a> (new softcover, with sample pages available, and the used copies I could find were only a few bucks cheaper). It's got less emphasis on ideas and plans, less focused on the opening than the previous books, but wonderful advice on other phases of the game.</p>
  <p>I've focused this answer on books because they have a higher information density. I'm sure there will be no shortage of suggestions (either in the comments to this or in other answers) for web pages and videos. There's a lot of good material out there.</p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2021-12-09T23:20:27.587Z
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Arlen
Body: <p>Any chess opening book or site for open a chess game for FIDE elo around 1800?Can any one help  me to overcome opening difficulties? Specially as sicilian keres attack and english open as black. I usually play d4/c4 as white and d5/Nf6 and c5 for e4 as black.</p>
  
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Comments.Text: I'm not sure why this was down-voted so much. I would recommend The Power of Pawns, by Jörg Hickl. It's not strictly related to openings, but it does cover a lot about pawn structure in different openings, and it helped me a lot when I was around 1800. Hope that helps!
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Comments.CreationDate: 2021-12-09T23:24:45.423Z
Comments.Text: Amusing. I see the question was both edited and closed while I was answering it. Just a note here: you'll need much more than just the Keres attack against the Sicilian. Most Sicilian games don't allow it (if black doesn't play ...e6 or white doesn't play g4, for example).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Arlen
Tags: <sicilian-defense><queens-gambit><english-opening>
Title: How to open a chess game
ThreadText: # How to open a chess game
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2021-12-09)
  
  Any chess opening book or site for open a chess game for FIDE elo around 1800?Can any one help me to overcome opening difficulties? Specially as sicilian keres attack and english open as black. I usually play d4/c4 as white and d5/Nf6 and c5 for e4 as black.
  
  **Tags:** sicilian-defense, queens-gambit, english-opening
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I'm not sure why this was down-voted so much. I would recommend The Power of Pawns, by Jörg Hickl. It's not strictly related to openings, but it does cover a lot about pawn structure in different openings, and it helped me a lot when I was around 1800. Hope that helps!  
  > **username_2**: Amusing. I see the question was both edited and closed while I was answering it. Just a note here: you'll need much more than just the Keres attack against the Sicilian. Most Sicilian games don't allow it (if black doesn't play ...e6 or white doesn't play g4, for example).  
  
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  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2021-12-09. Score: 2
  
  This is a really vague question, so my attempt at an answer will have to be similarly vague. Hope it helps.
  
  An old book that I still think is one of the best on the general subject of openings is "How To Open A Chess Game" from RHM Press. It's a series of essays (the first couple of which will be really elementary) from GMs on the subject of opening play. Here's a link to a used copy - [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31036123248&cm\_sp=det-\\_-bsk-\\_-bdp](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31036123248&cm_sp=det-%5C_-bsk-%5C_-bdp)
  
  John Watson's 4-volume set (Mastering The Chess Openings) has some generic opening info in the early parts of v1 and at the end of v4 there's a section on choosing and preparing openings. But together they're only 50 pages, give or take, so it may be a bit much to pay for that little.
  
  Reuben Fine's Ideas Behind The Chess Openings is a bit dated, but you may find it useful. It covers some plans and ideas for openings in vogue a half-century ago. (Move sequences go out of favor much faster than ideas and plans, so while a variation may have changed from the time of writing, the ideas behind the moves will probably not.
  
  But if the age (and likely the Descriptive Notation) of that book puts you off, Gary Lane did one about "Modern Openings" but that's also at least 25 years old.
  
  There's also a Mark Dvoretsky book, Opening Preparation (it was later re-released as part of his School Of Future Champions series). I'm not sure if you're used to Mark Dvoretsky, but his books require a lot of work from the reader; he's a professional trainer and expects you to put in the work rather than try to spoon-feed the information to you. Lots of good info, but not for the faint-hearted. The author credit on it varies with the edition; it was put together with Artur Yusupov, so I've seen credit given solely to Dvoretsky, solely to Yusupov, and jointly to both, so check under each author if you're having trouble locating it. It can get pricey, but's here's a link to the first appearance of it: [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30747626141&cm\_sp=det-\\_-bsk-\\_-bdp](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30747626141&cm_sp=det-%5C_-bsk-%5C_-bdp)
  
  Dvoretsky also has another book, Opening Developments, from his School of Chess Excellence series, but I'd advise starting with the first one to see if you have the taste for his style. FWIW, I really like his books, but I've heard complaints from enough others to acknowledge they're an acquired taste, not necessarily suitable for all.
  
  All of these books are less about memorizing a list of moves than they are about understanding and selecting variations. Try a lot of different openings, see which ones "fit your hand" best, and after that start settling in to build a repertoire from the lines that work for you. These books are more about that than they are about giving you a list of the principal lines of the Mar Del Plata or Kan variation to memorize and regurgitate at the board. Since the question was worded vaguely, I focused my answer more on books that would be useful no matter which particular variations you played, as there are literally thousands of variations that would fall under your original wording.
  
  If you were interested in something a little more concrete,
  Mikhail Shereshevsky had a book, The Soviet Chess Conveyor, that had some good advice about constructing a repertoire, but it suffered badly from either its translation or its editing (not sure which, but it was a bear to work out what the author was trying to say). I'll not include a link to it; you can find it if you're determined. But most of what he had to say about the opening can also be found in the first chapter of The Shereshevsky Method, published by New In Chess, and which also includes material from his utterly fantastic Endgame Strategy -- <https://www.newinchess.com/en_US/the-shereshevsky-method-to-improve-in-chess> (new softcover, with sample pages available, and the used copies I could find were only a few bucks cheaper). It's got less emphasis on ideas and plans, less focused on the opening than the previous books, but wonderful advice on other phases of the game.
  
  I've focused this answer on books because they have a higher information density. I'm sure there will be no shortage of suggestions (either in the comments to this or in other answers) for web pages and videos. There's a lot of good material out there.
  
  
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