Originally posted by highdrawInteresting question. I've been told by some strong players (over 2200) studying openings has a useful, but limited roll. Finding the logic behind these opening moves, as well as finding your own improvments, or alternatives will get you better results than a lot of rote memeorization.😏
Studying openings kinda takes the fun out of the game. Isn't it better to play a game and play a master piece with out getting your moves from a book?
what I feel like is a master piece for me...might be a piece of crap game filled with wrong lines and lost chances to a "real" player. Of course it was completely of my own devices...well other than knowing that control of the center is very important. I suppose even I use some insight from others experiance..... at my level I can't imagine how after 5 moves I could have played anything that resembles a book opening other than by pure chance.
In any event RHP has quickly become my favorite internet site! This is truly why Al Gore invented the interweb.
Originally posted by aquatabbyThere's nothing like "re-inventing the wheel" to learn wheel-craft. Surprisingly, there's plenty of novelty to be had in opening theory, or else GMs wouldn't bother studying (i.e., analyzing) it -- they'd all just agree on a canon of best moves and there would be no variation. Interestingly, many of the novelties emerge from study of games from the days of the romantics, who -- you guessed it -- invented the wheel and would consider all kinds of strange openings and moves, including many that today are labeled "hypermodern" and beyond. Many of these games were lost in the mists of history or else dismissed as primitive and beneath notice, until someone came along and found them and noticed a long-forgotten "novelty".
(2)Making everything up yourself involves re-inventing the wheel, as everything you are thinking about the opening will probably have been thought before, and the best moves and responses distilled into what we know as opening theory. Therefore, in order to play the best possible chess, we should learn all there is to know about opening theory.
There are also many openings that were once played by GMs, then lost currency (for whatever reason), then were later rediscovered and improved upon, and taken up again.
Every player, especially in correspondence chess where there is plenty of time to consider (unless you're playing too many games -- "too many" depending entirely upon each individual's talents and proclivities), should think about each and every move from the very first. Keep notes on the advantages and disadvantages of each move. Examine the possible replies of one's opponent and consider how both fit into one's strategic plans for an opening.
Of course it's acceptable to examine books on openings, especially at the overview level, to gain an idea of whether an opening suits you temperamentally and otherwise. Trying to memorize an opening is a problem because many of your opponents will not have done so, and instead make amateur moves typically "out of book" -- and if you don't understand the opening (that is, understand why you're making the moves you're making, even if those reasons eventually turn out in some cases to be short-sighted or erroneous), then you're going to be thrown for a loop when your opponent suddenly does something outre. Is it the latest novelty, or just something daft? You won't have a clue if you're playing the opening by rote.
What's dangerous is to assume that openings (even the popular ones) have been exhaustively examined and that best play has been determined. Even if this were so -- and it isn't, surprisingly -- there is nothing more boring than playing chess by numbers. That's why I'm having more fun on RHP this go-round; by avoiding database use totally during games, I'm no longer a wood-pusher for the databases (which amateurs, including myself, easily misinterpret and are misled by); instead, I feel I'm actually learning something about the game.
Originally posted by FoldererI agree about the fun of playing your own moves. There seems to be no shortage of amateur players playing book moves, who lose anyway. I've seen comments by players along the lines of "I've read tons of chess opening books but I still don't know how to play chess".
Don't study openings. Don't play book moves. It's much more fun to play your own moves, even if this means losing. . .
Better to understand opening principles than learn book moves. Sortez les pieces! Control the centre! Knights before bishops (!? ok, maybe not, but certainly minor pieces before major pieces!)
I've also come to believe that opening principles, while important, must give way to considerations specific to a given, concrete position. There is NO substitute for examining each position anew. Just because it seems "like" something in a book doesn't mean that the analogous position demands an equivalent response. The difference of a single pawn by a single square can make all the difference.
There is nothing like examining each position, as an exercise, to develop skills to "read the board". When your skills are underdeveloped your board vision and your tactical vision will reflect your development, and as a result your "analysis" and assessment of positions will too: a living game, offering the chance to hone these each and every move, offers a motivating chance to develop them, in a format that seems less like an "exercise" than an isolated position in a book puzzle that is from someone else's game (or nobody's at all). Savor each position and work at each in turn, and it's a pleasure insofar as you're interesting in doing this. (If you're not, then chess may not be your game anyway.) Correspondence chess offers the ideal venue for this highly personalized experience.
Like most questions on here, there is no magic answer that suits everyone. If you want to improve your chess then you need to improve on your weakest area, this could be openings, but it could be tactics or it could be endgame study, etc.
Going back to the OP, no I don't think that he needs to study openings. He doesn't even seem all that concerned about whether he wins, but whether he has fun along the way.
The answer is always different for different people.
Originally posted by greenpawn34I liked a lot of your comments, and I don't mean to be flip or snarky in pointing up what I consider to be an inconsistency here, between these two comments: rather, I'm trying to reinforce my earlier point -- opinion, really, since I'm no expert -- that chess openings aren't nearly as "mined out" as many chess players believe.
It is very hard, almost impossible, to play a move not in the book.
Even all the bad moves have been tried before and that is all
opening theory is, other peoples games.
. . . .
I have just skimmed through your 6 GIP's and none of them after
9-10 moves look like anything (perhaps with one exception) of anything
I have seen before.
I wonder, also, if some of the "bad" moves can turn out to be good moves given the right follow-up. That is, there are so many permutations of possible moves in chess, just over half a dozen moves, that in many cases nobody has really considered many of these combinations. I suppose that's phrased so tentatively that I'm not sticking my neck out too far. The real question is, how many, and how often? I doubt that anyone knows, for the same reason. If the permutations haven't been comprehensively explored, then they haven't been tabulated either.
"Analysis" in chess really refers to a process where a limited number of candidate moves are explored to a limited depth and with a limited number of permutations to that depth. And just as players may miss or reject, for example, a sound sacrifice in the first move of an analysis, so too may they miss or incorrectly reject them later. Then, there is the question of judgment in selecting, and rejecting, candidate moves, which again is not a comprehensive examination but something based upon experience and board sense.
Hi Schach.
I love talking chess and I never consider any chess talk to
be flip or snarky.
If you don't agree then I listen and I do sometimes jump ship
and say yeah good point, I'm wrong. (not often, but it happens) 😉
Agree a 'bad' opening move can turn out to be OK or a good choice
if not punished or jumped right away.
And of course White provided it's not a silly pawn move can get away
with practically anything as long as he willing to lose the first move plus.
The OP said that playing opening moves from a book took all the fun
out of the game. I pointed out that his games tend not to follow book
so he can have all the fun he wants.
I remembered this Josh Waitzkin game while reading this - Artur Kogan played the opening in a way that messes with opening strategy, and makes your opening prep useless. He lost the game, but I really admired the throw out the rule book approach. Play chess from the first move, and suddenly something new and crazy is on the board...
...maybe i should study openings... I might get really good and have more fun!...this is my plan...reherse tactics on chesstempo for the next few weeks...then join Rochester chess center and play every chance I get OTB...if i still suck a year from now I'm burning my crusades chess pieces.
