There are generally 2 main schools of thought when it comes to choosing openings. The mainstream school believes that you should start to learn the main lines of theory, accumulate the experience gained over tournament games and then emerge with a better understanding of the game. The other school's main emphasis is on practicality - to be able to enjoy chess without spending too much time. Hence the main idea is to adopt off-beat gambit lines, learn them well and work on the element of surprise. In my opinion, both schools have their points and merits. For an interested student of the game wanting to grow into a player of international standing, the mainstream school should be the way to go - however, it does amount to spending lots of time in gatherting the information about the history of the opening line, studying the key ideas from playing over the key games on which theory has evolved, then checking through the current state of theory. In addition, there's also the nee...