Psychology of bad openings

I'm sure we've all been on both sides of a wild game where you are lost straight out of the opening but by some miracle you fight back and manage to win from that terrible opening!

I want to ask why is it that in such lost positions, the one who's pressing often plays less optimally, loses their advantage, and at the end even loses the game?
We see this in bongcloud games & drunken master opening as one of the biggest examples. My game example:

[Moved - Chess Openings]

 I sure know I have been on the bad end of a few openings! 

-GC

Another addition to the blunder bank

Well I play bad openings all the time...

it’s psychological I suppose. Because I give my opponents an opening advantage, I know I have to play the absolute best moves or else I will die. Meanwhile if the opponent has too many on continuations then they might spend too much time and overthink, resulting in weaker moves. 

Also I couldn’t help but notice you used a different board theme each time 😐😐

Nice.

When there are so many good moves that win material but i waste 3 mins of thinking and then pick the worst one lol I usually get myself into trouble when i dont know the lines and what the important pawn pushes will be.

True, a fight for your life or just lay and die type of position

Also, yess I change board themes depending on my mood lol

"Any opening is good enough, if its reputation is bad enough." - Tartakover
Lasker practiced bad openings a lot. He called it "odds style" (Vorgabestil)

I guess those games are more about the "psychology of 3-min games"  Tempting your opponent to spend a lot of time searching for the final blow out, vut if you are able to stay in the game, you have decent chances in a time scramble 
But IMHO those games are in hindsight just a waste of time. The things you can learn from blitz games are limited in nature, but if you play a "serious" game there is at least the possibility that you might learn something. (Even though I know some players just like the trolling effect of rubbish openings)

One problem that Amateurs have is they think that a bad opening equates to blasting the king and that may not be the case at all!

Take the following:

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 Nc6 4.d5 (4.Nf3 and 4.Be3 are both better) Ne5 5.f4?! (Yes, this will get the pawn back for White, but at a major cost - his light-squared Bishop - 5.Bf4 is better) Nd3+ 6.Bxd3 cxd3 7.Qxd3.

This is a bad line for White, but this does not mean Black goes on a raging attack and tries to mate the king in the next 15 moves.  He has the Bishop pair in an open position.  This is a long term asset for Black, but if Black goes hog wild trying to win quickly, it could backfire easily.

#11
It is not about 3 minute blitz, it also works in classical games. It is usually applied to weaker opponents, but it also works against stronger opponents. Example
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1068157

Carlsen also plays a lot of bad openings against grandmasters. If you play a good opening against a prepared opponent, then a draw is likely. To win a tournament, it is necessary to win games. You cannot win a game of chess unless the opponent makes a mistake. By taking the opponent out of his comfort zone early and forcing him to think of himself early on, you increase the odds of him making a mistake.

That is certainly true. The games posted at the start, however, are not just "unusual", slightly worse openings, but completely lost openings after 9 moves Those are certainly openings that not even Carlsen would touch in an OTB tournament

Yes, but you can also throw people off with unsound garbage if you use it at the right time and sparingly.

I played in Atlanta in October 2019.  5 round tournament.  I ended up winning it as I think the 6-seed, beating the top 2 in the first 2 rounds.

I beat the top seed in Sicilian Prins Variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3)

I beat the 2nd seed in round 2 with the same opening.

I lost a dead won King's Indian with Black due to time trouble in round 3.

I beat the London System with Black in round 4.

So the final round comes, and I need a win.  I have White against a player that rushes his moves.  He thinks by moving really fast (time control was 40/90, SD/30) that you will run out of time or screw up due to time pressure.  He played the Black side of the Sicilian in his other games with Black.

Rather than ride his train, I did the following in round 5:

1.c3! And answered his response (I think it was 1...c5, but not 100% sure) with 2.Qa4 and 3.g4!  There is a whe book on this called "The Elshad for White".

I easily make time control, and it isn't until late in the game, when it is too late anyway, that he starts taking his time.  He even spent 6 minutes on 1 move!  It does not change the fact that I spent a right around 90 minutes (with a half hour to spare, game was 50+ moves) to his 32 minutes!  He got destroyed!  The last 25 or so moves was just avoiding shenanigans!

Afterwards, he's like "What the hell opening was that?" And I told him what it was and that I specifically played it on him as he rushes his.moves and moves too fast!  I wasn't walking into his.prep!

Perfect time to do it!  It would be stupid if that was all I play as White.  It is something to throw out there occasionally!

There are so may people quoting Carlsen to prove that garbage openings are good. But guess what? He is a GM, a world champion who has a firm understanding of the fundamentals and has seen many different positions in his life. So he is able to adapt and sometimes transpose from a suboptimal line into a similar structure he knows. Also he is incredibly tricky. I saw a stream where he played many young talents and in some positions he was completely lost but he found incredible tricks to even win the game.

From my experience the average club player who plays a bad opening blunders left and right especially if they face deviations from their cheap traps. The problem is that often the position is so bad so that finding the right defensive moves becomes increasingly harder which increases the probablity of mistakes. Combine that with limited tactical vision, poor chess understanding and violation of opening principles and this will lead to a desaster.

Don't misunderstand me, I like to play crappy openings as well, but mostly in blitz, but in classical games I prefer to stick to openings that actually teach me good chess, which actually helps later on when I decide to play some dubious openings  in faster time controls.

People who exclusively play openings like the Stafford will harm their chess in the long run.

The fact that these players win not a small number of games is really bad for them, because they will condition themselves that it is okay to violate chess principles like development, center. Note that I'm talking about players, who don't have a firm grasp of the fundamentals. Players who already have a basic understanding of chess principles and play good openings on a regular basis can of course play bad opening from time to time just for fun.

Carlsen played all kinds of theoretical openings even najdorfs early on in his career and only later played less played openings or bad openings (mostly in faster time controls).

So in short playing good openings on a regular basis helps you immensly when you play dubious openings later on.

True, but here mostly in blitz I don’t intentionally go into them. It’s either a mouseslip or an Elementary misjudgment 😃

That's Great only