Learning is an incremental process, you learn a little theory, you play some games, and you update your theory. And if you're like me, who doesn't learn any mainline openings at all, by the time you actually get to the "2000+ range" (the most common threshold these people say) then it will actually be EXTREMELY HARD to learn theory!
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Exactly and thats why its more of a waste for beginners and intermediates to not learn right away as it just gets them into more problems and baloney which they must deal with later
Yes! As someone who tried to learn mainline Catalan theory, it was near impossible to play it in 3min games because my opponents were playing the opening so fast I had to stop and gather my bearings each time.
and then there's me replying e5!? on move two everytime someone plays the london hoping they premove e3 and lose their bishop
bruh imagine falling for that and losing your bishop
half of the people in the 1500 pool do
even if they don't they take like 3 seconds to go "wtf just happened"
Just max out your luck stat