IMO, I don't think that is the right method.The reason is that before you learn to play, let's say Dutch, you have first to learn to play Queen's Gambit.If you don't , you will have a huge gap in your education that eventually will kick in.

   A junior chessplayer is like a kid.If you want him to be "strong" you have to "feed" him correctly and not let him "eat" what he likes.Later when he can judge  , he can decide about his "food" but at his first steps he has to be guided closely because the point is not to understand an opening.The point is to understand chess, that is what many forget(I'm talking generally).

If there are broken links, then post it, even if there isn't a huge demand.

I know I would like it.

pfren, FLchessplayer: you both have to work seriously on your sense of humor!

Well pfren, maybe I'm a bit retarded, but I found it kind of funny.

Back on topic: what's wrong with using a system for a beginner? It's not about memorizing lines, but about reaching a playable middle game without putting much effort in the study of openings.

I'm quite a newbie myself, and I find playing the KIA just suits me well - but I keep hearing from masters that I shouldn't.

I get the impression you've never found anything funny pfren, except maybe a dubious chess move.

Are you sure Bankwell is a Mr?

Do trolls have a gender?Even if they do , it doesn't really matter.They are  an insult for either gender.

Just ignore him and he'll go away.

I'm neither a chess teacher nor a strong player, but I can recognise a fallacious argument when I see one.

You can't legitimatley back up your "unique ... personal system" by appealing to your years of teaching experience and the number of students you've coached, while simultaneously criticising "many of the 'norms' of conventional, traditional chess instruction" which "strike [you] as absurd" and as "a boatload of traditional nonsense", because those norms have come from ... wait for it ... many, many other chess teachers spending many, many years teaching and coaching many, many students.

If something is a "norm", then it implies the majority of chess teachers and coaches who have just as much as experience as you do have agreed with it - it wouldn't have become a "norm" if they hadn't. Unless you have some kind of special experience which has been generally unavailable to other chess teachers, then if your "unique ... personal system" diverges from "conventional wisdom" it actually contradicts what experience has generally shown to be best, so you can't appeal to your own experience to back it up.

Of course, it's still possible that you're right - perhaps you've stumbled upon the one right way to teach which has eluded other chess teachers throughout history. People rail against conventional wisdom in all kinds of fields, and while most of the time they're wrong, every now and again someone is right and conventional wisdom changes after a period of resistance. If, in 10 to 15 years' time, your system has become the majority view, then it'll show you were right. But, in this case, it still wouldn't be the mere amount of your experience which was responsible for the superiority of your system, but rather some kind of personal genius.

I suspect that the reality is that brand new players are going to play badly whether you teach them openings or not, that there are as many different good ways of teaching as there are combinations of teachers and students, and that many, many different ways of teaching rank beginners are probably just as good as each other. If a beginner enjoys the game, plays a lot, and gets quality instruction of some kind then they are likely to improve beyond recognition in those first couple of years regardless of the details of that instruction, so it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the scheme of things. The overwhelming majority of beginners are not going to become grandmasters, so teaching them what they enjoy and what they are interested in is probably going to be a better approach in most cases than making them strictly follow some system or other.

I find it interesting that you took the time to reduce his argument to confusingly abstract points, then mention how those overly abstract statements you made are not 100% consistent, all for no real purpose other then trolling.

colle is great!

NM FLchessplayer

The fact that you teach 35 years doesn't mean you do it right.

I have met a lot that teach even more and do it the wrong way.

The fact that Botvinnik agrees with pfren and considers opening completely useless for beginners gives us 2 controversial conclusions:

1)Either you are right or

2)Botvinnik is right

What do you think?

To be fair, there are probably a number of GM's who don't consider openings useless for a beginner. It's not a black and white subject, I certainly think there are better areas once a beginner knows the principles though.

Opening is useless for beginners.The number of GMs that don't consider it useless are the ones that get paid for it.It is well known that the easy way to get easy and lot of  money from begginers is to promise them that you will give them a "killer opening repertoire".The same is true for books also.

LOL ya i think a few russian masters (which for people who dont know Russian master was considered equivelant to GM, I believe)... and world champions 

One key to remember is that the Russian school was designed to make GM's the vast majority of people never got a chance to attend the school and those that did were already strong players before they entered. Candidate master level or higher I believe was a minimum requirement. a 2250 FIDE friend of mine and I laughed about a chess camp that was being offered by Ivanchuk and some other masters where the MINIMUM level was 2400... 

My experience with watching players play closed systems is that it creates an artifical sense of safety . Players that do this tend to miss out on dynamic play and never grow. (This was my own weakness and one that i work hard on with my students never letting them hide behind a strength and avoid weaknesses.)