Tactical Openings

[newlook]

I have been following the often-given advice of playing open games that have early tactical possibilities. With White, I open with e4, and I almost always get an open position. With Black, I have been playing Queen's Gambit Accepted. Does anyone have suggestions for other QP openings that lead to open games?

FYI, I am not memorizing opening lines, nor is my typical opponent. I may download a game collection for an opening and look through some games, but I try to put most of the burden on myself to spot traps in game. I'm not afraid to learn by losing.

[boromir]

I am a long-time fan of the benko gambit (though I actually don't play it very often anymore). There are, as in all openings, a few tricks and traps that would be good to know but you can get along on general principles for a long way (especially if your opponents aren't terribly 'booked up') as black gets nice natural development of his pieces.

[slacker00]

I play the King's Gambit as white, following the Raingruber & Maser book.  It's the only opening where I even attempt to memorize anything.  I only do it as an exercise for myself to at least have one "theory-loaded" opening which I can experience that aspect of chess.

Otherwise, I just try to get to "playable" middle games and don't have many mainlines memorized except if I've played them before.  I've had decent luck in the openings, because I think until one gets close to Master level, study time is much better spent on endgames, tactics, positional comprehension, etc.

My remaining opening repetoire consists of playing 1. .. g6 as black, 1.e4 c5 2.Nge2 against the sicilian as white with plans to play a closed sicilian unless black does something stupid, against the French I used to always play the advance variation, but I think I'm going to switch to something else with even less theory, against the Caro-Kann & other obscure openings I usually just wing it.