[automatic6131]

Define "average" and "very good" - it's quite easy to become good enough to beat all your friends and family (as long as you haven't made friends at the chess club or chess competitions). But if you want to do your best at the local chess competition held in a school hall at the weekend against all kinds of people, from little kids to pensioners, then yeah, you're going to need to spend lots of time studying openings, learning end game theory, and solving chess puzzles.

[k2052]

strongly disagree that studying openings is necessary to "do your best" at competitions. In my experience almost all games between players under 2000 (class players) are decided tactically. I'm expertish (2200+ bullet, 2200+ blitz, 1900+ USCF, win most local tournaments in my area etc) and I don't bother studying openings. Chess is 99.9% tactics at the class level. You won't reach GM without opening theory memorization but you wont reach GM anyway.

Also a reminder for anyone reading these comments that chess should be fun! Don't let psychological hangups like thinking u need a good memory, thinking you need to study openings, have a certain level of skill, or need to play a certain format (like avoiding blitz because it is "bad" for your game or thinking OTB is more important) stop you from playing chess! The only rules for how to play chess are the rules of the game; all the other stuff e.g advice about how to get good are just things people make up. Learn and play however you want and in whatever way brings you the most joy! Chess is a game and it is meant to be fun and not be taken seriously

[automatic6131]

I think I'm just salty (and overfitting) that my cousin studied one opening to a stupid depth and beat me ~10 games in a row with it

[dmurray]

It doesn't take extreme memory on your part to remember to avoid that opening after the first 9 losses, or indeed the first one. There are 5-10 other reasonable options for you on the first move alone.

It doesn't take extreme memory on your friend's part either if you keep falling for the same trick. It would take extreme memory for him to have something prepared against every plausible option you could choose.

[NiloCK]

Have you considered that your cousin is also better than you tactically?

If you're losing 10 games in a row to a specific opening trap then that falls into the "fool me eight or more times" category :)

[bjourne]

That echoes my experience as a much weaker player as well. I improved leaps and bounds by studying puzzles. Not so much by memorizing openings.