I played a lot in high school, early ‘60’s. I still have Reinfeld’s book on queen pawn openings.
Jimmy Baldwin and I used to play at his house after school. I remember he fell into one of the traps discussed in the book. We each shouted “Ha!” after our move, until he discovered he was down a piece.
When did they change chess notation? I couldn’t get into when I tried to take it up again.
Oh, they were changing to algebraic notation when I was a Sr. in HS = 1970-1971. About that time, my interest started to wane and I never really got algebraic “in my head”. Shortly thereafter, anyone using P-K4 was thought of as a luddite. Algebraic is actually much more logical, because in mathematical terms, like it or not, it makes little sense to shift reference points turn-by-turn.
You “have to” learn the openings, the top dozen or so, including the top half-dozen variations, out to maybe 10 moves each. And that is probably 200 openings. Otherwise, someone operating from sheer memory can develop a winning position over you by rote (eg; no brainpower expended) and then you are a tempo or two or a pawn down at minimum. And/or, you’re playing that “look to find a trap/swindle” game. Playing the “look to burn” style down a tempo or so against a good player will lose a great majority of the time. Unless they are deficient on their “burn” tactics.