Does anyone have any tips on how I should memorize opening lines? I hate having to keep replaying same positions 7 or 8 times a weekly to learn one line. Does anyone have any tips on how I can remember these lines easier?

Thanks,
Octal.

Yeah. Don't.

Memorizing opening lines is something for advanced players.

Once again, I'll agree with Ronaldinho. The best way to learn an opening is to try it out. Learn the first few moves that define the opening, then play it in a game. When you're done playing each game, check to see how your game varied from book theory, and make sure you understand why the book theory is better. After you play a few dozen games with the opening, looking it up after each game to learn a little bit at a time, you'll understand enough that you won't need to memorize the line.

--Fromper

Good advice from both. Try playing over about 100-200 games using your selected opening. That will give you an idea of how the openings unfold. Pay attention to opening formations and resulting middlegame patterns. After each game follow Fromper’s advice. Using this method you will find you often play “book” lines without even knowing it because you are beginning to develop pattern recognition. That’s enough for now. There is no “easy” way to learn openings. Chess is like anything else you are trying to learn. Say a language. You learn words and sentence structure(opening moves and patterns) but you still have to practice speaking (playing) it. Along the way you’ll mispronounce words, use the wrong words, get them in the wrong order, not recognize slang, leave out words and speak in incomplete sentences. It takes a while to become proficient. It took me 3 years to learn English.

The best way as i feel is to go through annoted games and try to link moves with annotations. It helped me.

Murali

I've never believed in memorization.
I've always believed in learning.

I have a saying that's my own:
Memorizing for the low levels, learning for the high levels, and forgetting for the geniuses.

Let's say if you are trying to learn the opening lines for the Sicilian (as if life isn't short enough already), then I would actually recommend reading through the move sequence, play it out, and then write next to each move the purpose of that. Now, instead of learning the moves, learn the purpose of each move. Now you know what to do and what it actually means, when it is played. From then you should know what to do.

Learn opening theory before you even try to memorize an opening.

Learn the why before the how.

Pick a opening you like, and then learn the ideas behind it, and then remember a few basic rules.

1. you want to have pawns and pieces in the center or at least controling the center of the board.

2. Generally, move pawns, Knights, and Bishops before rooks and the queen.

3. Try to avoid moving a piece more then once unless your capturing a another pawn or piece.


For example, (this if from a David Levy book) in the early days of computer chess there was a program called "Tech" that was a baseline chess program. The idea was to just look at material (It used a little amount of computer time on positional aspects to be able to search better, but basically, it meant to look at tactics) and in the early days it beat a lot of early programs.

It did not have memorized opening lines, instead it used a simple system similar to what I described above.

it played some nice opening lines just from knowledge. (if someone wants examples i will find the book and type a few out)

seriously, till your 1500 rated or so your better off learning the basic theories and endings then memorizing lines, unless you insist on playing the Dragon...

Those are the points generally followed, and you should follow them, because they work, for now. They have worked for centuries, so I do not see why they will fail any time (unless something ultramodern pops up tomorrow!)

Speaking of the Dragon, every time I try to play it (I love BARBARIC GAMES! Especially the ones with hammers and cannons), the opponent always somehow transposes it into something more quiet and civil. Such boring people...

I agree that learning opening lines is not particularly useful. Had a friend who used to do it and he almost always got frustrated because players wouldn't play into the opening lines he had spent ages studying.