What should I study the most, opening, middlegame, or endgame.

Hey chess lovers. I've been struggling with how to divide up my time when studying the 3 stages of the game. I've heard of things like the 25-40-35 rule, but I've heard many others too. Some even think that endgames shouldn't be looked at until your 1500.

What do yall think?

@ovfife
Play rapid or classical, then analyze your finished games.

Opening: develop your pieces properly.
Middle game: be careful against tactics.

You can learn endgames here : lichess.org/practice.

You're a 1800+ so I'd recommend to focus on endgames and on general tactics of all kinds.

Do specific puzzles about endgames, as well as generic puzzles with random stuff.

Do not spend too much time on openings, it's still too early for that. All you need for openings at this stage is to do the post game analysis and check out carefully your opening mistakes after every game.

@ovfife ... Study Play Play Study but yeah' COMPLETE GAMES so you get it all !! Openings Middlegames & Endgames

I still haven't figured out how to study a middlegame. :-/

www.inspiringquotes.us/author/5085-jose-raul-capablanca

“In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game.”

“The best way to learn endings, as well as openings, is from the games of the masters.”

---

I find Morphy and Fischer the easiest to learn from. - They are very direct.

@ovfife said in #1:
> Some even think that endgames shouldn't be looked at until your 1500.

Regardless if you didnt got a decent game. Once most of the material is out, you are going to play the endgame, even when behind. You need to be good at endgames so you can either convert a winning position or salvage a bad one. If you are going to divide the time between those 3 topics, this is the one that should consume the most time until you are very familiar with most matting patterns and the principles of endgames.

I mean, you are gonna reach an endgame every single game you didnt mated or you are not mated yourself.

Once you are familiar with the endgame, you focus your study on the midgame. Pawn structures, weak squares, general strategy, tactics, etc. This is because since you already know how to convert x position to a win or draw, you can actually force it from the mid game. You can manipulate with a certain degree how to reach the endgame. You will know what and where to trade to reach a desired position.

You shouldnt waste too much time in the early game if you are familiar with chess principles. You do need to study openings, but in terms of priority, they are the last one.

Years ago, a guy told me not to study openings, because at my level it doesn't help much. All these thick books and complicated lines, they are for pros. Maybe do some tactics and just enjoy playing. It all sounded very reasonable.

A day before we were to play (casual games!), I literally saw him with a book on an opening I was playing.

for openings don't put in much time, maybe 5 moves of theory max, or a bit deeper in some tricky lines, I say 10% of time here

middlegame is mostly not getting into worse positions , attacking, defending, and trading. put a bit more time here, maybe around 40%, (along with tactics and positional ideas)

endgame is mostly memorizing simple solved endgame techniques, and using those ideas in endgame positions, along with brute calculation . this is probably the most tricky section in the game ( according to me) so more time should be focused on endgames. I say put 50% of you time into endgames

I don't really buy "opening, middlegame, endgame" as a way to divide chess study - eg "opening study" could mean memorizing theory deep into the middlegame / endgame, or it could mean studying a bunch of games in your openings to try to understand the typical plans and ideas. I'd spend a lot more time on the latter than the former. Similarly "endgames" could be the theoretical "king rook and bishop vs king and rook" type stuff, which IMO is valuable up to a point but gets into diminishing returns fairly fast, or the "how to activate your rooks" and "how to push a pawn majority" type stuff which is very tightly connected with a lot of positional middlegame ideas.

So yeah, I'd say opening theory - not much, thematic ideas and plans in your openings - quite a bit, middlegame attacking ideas and tactics - quite a bit, positional middlegames and endgames, not masses at first but more later, theoretical endgames, again, not masses at first but more later.