best openings for 1500 rating?

what is the best opening to use at this level?

should I continue using Queen's gambit and Sicilian defense?

if there are any flaws in my openings pls tell me, thanks.

The best opening to play is clearly the milly rock, otherwise you should go for a scholars mate

@1

"what is the best opening to use at this level?" ++ Simplest and best is to defend 1 e4 e5 and 1 d4 d5 as black and open 1 e4 as white.

"should I continue using Queen's gambit" ++ It is a good opening, but hard to play right.

"and Sicilian defense?" ++ It is a good opening, but hard to play right.

"if there are any flaws in my openings" ++ No there are no flaws in your openings. However, you do not win or lose because of the opening, but because of tactical mistakes.

You should continue with the sicilian since it is epic, yes. Queens gambit... it's quite good too. Good repertoire. Though it sort of depends on which sicilian you're playing, some lines are better than others for club players. Super theoretical and giant lines like the najdorf are better avoided at club level, something like the four knights / classical / lowenthal / taimanov are generally better. And Queens gambit is also very theoretical, but I would suggest looking for ways to diverge from theory in the various lines.

Unless for some reason you are just bored and want to branch out. You should at least experiment. The repertoire is a matter of personal preference in many ways. Develop some secondary openings or things like this. Don't buckle down and develop a serious repertoire yet, wait until 1800 to do that, learn about the game and learn about yourself as a player. Developing flexibility and broad understanding is important at your level. For example... sometimes novel positions will occur on the board and, based on your dabbling in other openings, you'll know how to handle them. There are also less common moves that transpose into a variety of openings, and you need some flexibility to handle them when they pop up. At least you should know the basic concepts in various openings.

Yeah, I think you should. There are a few key concepts I think you're missing, looking through your last few games, but aside from that you seem to be a rather strong 1500 with a good understanding of your openings.

Yeah, I think my main issue isn't actually my openings, but my middlegame and understanding my opponents tactics, I guess. (seeing this post with small but very good feedback made me realize my middlegame is the most critical). Thank you for your feedback and I'll try to add these moves to my repetoire.

"Milk and cookies" is a very aggressive opening...straight up jacked!

For defense I play the "Troll under the bridge"

So much better than the Bongcloud or the Cow...

you want to build a repetoire that results in similar positions to what you are used to playing. Ie play the caro kann vs 1e4 and slav vs 1d4. You also need to know a variation for each of the common moves as black when they don't take your pet opening. For me its the italian but more often than not I have to play the caro, sicilian, etc. You also should have some idea of what to do against offbeat openings like the polish, birds opening, etc.

I play:

As white:

1e4 > italian, giuco piano, caro kann fantasy variation, smith morra gambit, petrov cochrane attack (sometimes) /stafford/main line, french advance millner barry gambit, scandi, depends on what my opponent does but thats what I go for.

As Black:

1e4 > caro kann *(whichever variation)

* you must learn the panov attack and its variations, the fantasy, the 2 knights attack, and the tal variation or you will lose tons of games.

1d4 > indian game/slav defense/slav indian (whichever variation but I play Qb6 if it looks like they are going for london.

just one think of one bad player, maybe just learn one openning and carry it long terme, make it your first ston, watch game of 2000+ fide player, learn some different respond, learn some history of this openning, etc. and that became what you do when you want to study openning. Other time you just learn tactics, positionnal concept, endgame and play game of different kind like normal chess player.

I play the modern scandi, works very well at my elo (2200)

sicilian or scotch

honestly I think I like open positions more but I do best my opponents in closed position but it's not something I like getting into, so in short - open positions are better for me

if you like open positions more then you likely also prefer to play aggressively. as white, I'd recommend any of the four main lines following 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, which include the Italian Game, Ruy Lopez, Scotch Game, and Three Knights Game. Play around with them to see which u like, bc I've learned about my preferences too through practice (I learned I prefer the Italian Game over Ruy Lopez). In general, playing e4 is more open and aggressive than d4. There are some exceptions (such as certain variants in the Queen's Gambit) but you might run into trouble tryna maneuver these mazes with billions of lines. As black, the Sicilian is probably your best option along with the Caro Kann. I also think it benefits everyone to learn the King's Indian Defense for 1. d4, and you could try the Pirc (d6) to transpose into K.I.D against 1. e4 . so yeah, there u go.