Five Reasons To Know Something About Everything in the Chess Openings
- You need to be knowledgeable in order to make meaningful move choices;
- Transpositions (shifting from one opening to another) take place frequently;
- Ideas from one opening game can be applied to other similar openings;
- Sometimes you reach a position in an opening with "colors reversed"- for instance, when White plays the English (1. c4) and Black responds with 1. ... e5, both players can find themselves in a "Reversed Sicilian".
- One can improve one's overall play by practicing in different kinds of middlegame positions resulting from various openings.