Deconstructing "Openings don't matter"

Sort:
Avatar of Jenium

@jmpchess12: Good post. I agree with most of what you've said.

However, Ben Finegold's statement is obviously a bit tongue in cheek. I don't think he really recommends playing h4 and Rh3. I just suppose he is probably frustrated seeing beginners blundering every other move but asking him about openings. Similarly, in the forum there is every day a post from a 900 player about which opening to play. In contrast, I rarely see posts like "How do I improve my pattern recognition?" or "How do I do puzzles the right way?".

It's a bit like beginners asking in a guitar forum "Which guitar sounds the best?" but not "Which exercises will improve my play?"

 

Avatar of Jenium
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
dfgh123 wrote:

How many rating points do you think studying openings is worth 100? 200? If you play e4 and just played 1.f4 all year without looking at lines or f4 games, how much would your rating go down?

IF you were capable of memorizing all of those, then it would be worth hundreds of rating points. If you could memorize the King's Indian, and all of the Ruy Lopez courses (there are multiple), and knew all of the lines out to 15-20 moves, that would be hundreds for black.

So if you were to memorize a deep white opening and a deep black opening for each for each e4 and d4, it would have to be worth up to maybe 1000 rating if you were lower intermediate, and maybe 500 if you were upper intermediate.

That's not how chess works. I've experimented with openings I have never used before. I lost a few points but not many. You might start with an unfamiliar position, but the longer the game goes the more your playing strength will kick in. That's also what I've heard from other players. Try it. Play 100 games with an opening you're not familiar with. Maybe the London or the Scandi. ;-) I don't think that your rating will plummet more than 50 points.

 

Avatar of Stil1

Finegold just meant that openings don't matter at lower levels, because our opponents aren't engines. They're not going to instantly punish you for making a slight inaccuracy in the first few moves.

As long as you make reasonable moves, you should both be able to just ... play chess. Even if your moves aren't grandmaster-approved theory.

Of course, we don't want to hang pieces in the opening, or succumb to a Scholar's Mate ... but we also shouldn't be obsessing over opening theory, as if we're grandmasters training for a World Championship match.

Especially when there are other, more beneficial things to focus on ...

Avatar of ninjaswat
Preusseagro wrote:
ninjaswat hat geschrieben:
dfgh123 wrote:

How many rating points do you think studying openings is worth 100? 200? If you play e4 and just played 1.f4 all year without looking at lines or f4 games, how much would your rating go down?

Depends on the time control. In blitz or lower? My rating would probably be around the same...

in rapid? Still the same... Only really makes a difference in classical where the nuances matter.

if  dont know the oponig 400 points weaker

Wrong - I played a totally foreign opening in classical and was at the same strength.

where is your proof for your claims??

Avatar of Jenium
Preusseagro wrote:
Jenium hat geschrieben:
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
dfgh123 wrote:

How many rating points do you think studying openings is worth 100? 200? If you play e4 and just played 1.f4 all year without looking at lines or f4 games, how much would your rating go down?

IF you were capable of memorizing all of those, then it would be worth hundreds of rating points. If you could memorize the King's Indian, and all of the Ruy Lopez courses (there are multiple), and knew all of the lines out to 15-20 moves, that would be hundreds for black.

So if you were to memorize a deep white opening and a deep black opening for each for each e4 and d4, it would have to be worth up to maybe 1000 rating if you were lower intermediate, and maybe 500 if you were upper intermediate.

That's not how chess works. I've experimented with openings I have never used before. I've lost a few points but not many. You might start with an unfamiliar position, but the longer the game goes the more your playing strength will kick in. That's also what I've heard from other players. Try it. Play 100 games with an opening you're not familiar with. Maybe the London or the Scandi. ;-) I don't think that your rating will plummet more than 50 points.

 

If he has the right oponents. I am for example very good at punishing of book moves in ceratain lines

That's a big if. Of course, once in a while you'll run into a opponent who falls into a trap or a losing line. But most of time if you know theory and your opponent doesn't, he/she will play a suboptimal line and you will end up with something like +0.7 , which is not such a big deal at lower levels.

Avatar of Jenium
yetanotheraoc wrote:
ninjaswat wrote:
dfgh123 wrote:

How many rating points do you think studying openings is worth 100? 200? If you play e4 and just played 1.f4 all year without looking at lines or f4 games, how much would your rating go down?

Depends on the time control. In blitz or lower? My rating would probably be around the same...

in rapid? Still the same... Only really makes a difference in classical where the nuances matter.

^^^ This.

In a slow game if you make a mistake your opponent will be able to think about how to punish it. So in a slow game you have to think hard in an unfamiliar opening. Maybe you can figure it out, but it costs time on the clock. Incidentally, this is why opening knowledge spills over into other phases of the game. If two players play the opening equally well, but one plays from memory and the other figures it out from general principles + calculation, then the time saved means the memory player will play the middlegame or endgame "better". Anybody looking at the scoresheet later will conclude somebody "just blundered", which is not the whole story.

In a fast game you just make any old move, and now it's the booked-up player who doesn't have time to figure out how to punish it. So you might get away with it! Of course if you walk into the main line of some book trap, you are doomed....

Actually, one could argue that in Blitz games knowing your openings matters more, as you don't have the time to figure out the right moves over the board/screen.

Avatar of JimRichmond

In high school chess club we were given the following advice.

Open with a central pawn.

Develop knights before bishops.

Develop all of your pieces before attacking.

Castle within the first ten moves.

Concentrate on control of the center four squares.

Protect your pieces.

Don’t move a piece twice in the opening unless you have to do so.

Limit pawn moves to avoid creating weaknesses.

Those as well as some additional basic tips were provided along with two sample openings to try.

We were also taught basic endgame techniques and that training helped us better understand how pieces worked together.

 

Avatar of brianchesscake

The only times that openings don't matter are at the total beginner and super-GM levels.

Amateurs will hang pieces, blunder, and get checkmated with or without knowing opening theory.

Carlsen and other elite players can play almost any opening and position and still play top engine recommended moves simply because of their incredibly deep understanding of the game.

For pretty much everyone else, knowing openings is very important to strengthening your strategy.

Avatar of Steven-ODonoghue
Jenium wrote:

Actually, one could argue that in Blitz games knowing your openings matters more, as you don't have the time to figure out the right moves over the board/screen.

Absolutely. After looking at lots of blitz specialists who play hundreds of points stronger online than they do OTB, the main thing they have in common is the fact that they play a narrow repertoire of openings that they know very well and are familiar with. Guys who play 1.e4 half the time and 1.d4 the other half and 1.c4 if they are in the mood are almost always weaker at blitz than their OTB peers, at least from what I've observed.

 

In response to the OP:

"openings" DON'T matter, but "the opening" DOES matter. The main argument of why the opening doesn't matter is the fact that every single game is decided by a gross blunder by either you or your opponent. Except of course the odds of blundering go up drastically if you are in a position you don't understand , and the odds of blundering goes down drastically if you exit the opening in a position where you know what's going on and have played 1000 times before.

Picking a single opening and studying it well will always be one of the most important things to improve your game, but picking a main line sicilian defense over the St. George defense isn't going to give better results below master level.

 

There is a ~2650 untitled player on lichess who calls himself "jack the ripper chess" or something like that. Every single game he plays 1.a4 2.Ra3 with white and 1...a5 2...Ra6 as black. Most of the time this "bluders the exchange" to a bishop. Almost the worst possible opening you could think of. And yet, if he stopped playing this he would probably lose 100 rating points. Because this is the opening he is familiar with and has experience in.

In rated games against 2300-2500 opponents I often play such "refuted garbage" like the Elephant gambit, Halloween gambit, Halibut gambit(c4 b5), Icelandic gambit, Portugese gambit, etc.  And score well with these. I would almost certainly score worse if I started playing more traditional openings.

 

I am of the opinion that the opening is extremely important, but I completely agree with Ben finegold that whichever opening you play is completely irrelevant. What is important is picking a single opening and becoming familiar with it by learning what squares each piece belongs on, typical plans for both sides, tactics and traps for both sides, pawn breaks, etc.

 

By the way, @Nikkilikechikki saying that all the openings score the same statistically and therefore it doesn't matter which opening you pick is not a great argument. Certain openings are MUCH better than others for certain rating ranges when played well. But for every player who understands the opening well, there is another who can't play it at all. So over the course of tens of thousands of games the scores flatten out. An example is the line 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3. Bd3 f5. Completely losing by force for black, despite the fact that it scores fine for him. Because obviously half the white players know the refutation and get a winning positon, and the other half lose because they're down a rook. This does NOT mean that playing this way as black is just as good as any other opening that happens to score the same.

Avatar of Ethan_Brollier
tygxc wrote:

Here is proof openings do not matter.

Take the good side of the worst opening you can think of: 1 e4 f5? or 1 d4 g5? and play it against an engine. The engine will destroy you despite the bad opening imposed on it.

It is better to play a bad opening well than to play a good opening badly.

Here's proof openings do matter. Take an engine and make it play the good side of the worst opening you can think of, and make it play against an engine. The engine with the better side of the opening will be far, far more likely to win. 
It is better to play a bad opening well than a good one badly, but it's much better to learn a good opening well, as playing a good opening well is better than playing a bad opening well.

Avatar of Romans_5_8_and_8_5

The point of openings don't matter is to show beginners how to play chess before learning openings. If you still hang pieces and pawns, don't start learning opening theory. Focus on not hanging pieces and pawns! Openings bear very minuscule effect to about 75% of the playerbase. Openings definitely don't matter AS MUCH as other things in chess. 

Avatar of stassneyking

Opening principles matter. Developing your pieces well and fighting for the center matters. Getting an advantage in the opening will give you more opportunities in the middle game and a better chance to win.

Avatar of MaetsNori

I believe what Finegold (and others) are trying to say is: "Stop talking about openings when you need to focus on more basic things, first."

So, like, when a player does this in a game:

And then they ask something like, "I just lost really fast. Maybe I should change to the Queen's Gambit? Or maybe the KIA?"

Then you have players like Finegold slapping their foreheads and screaming, "The problem isn't the opening variation!" in response. It's just frustration.

Avatar of najdorf96

indeed. Weird how the Same Argument about Openings in Another Different Way still produces The Same Ol' Takes. Hoo boy. Heh.

Avatar of najdorf96

I've always advocated learning Opening prep and Creating your own Opening Repertoire from the word go. As early as possible, if you're going to want to be competitive in any form.

Avatar of najdorf96

Only thing I could critique (about the OP) is there seems to be no 30 min games or Daily games of note. Only Blitz or Speed type games. Soo it's hard for me to fully back up his observations, though I totally agree with his point.

Avatar of jmpchess12
najdorf96 wrote:

Only thing I could critique (about the OP) is there seems to be no 30 min games or Daily games of note. Only Blitz or Speed type games. Soo it's hard for me to fully back up his observations, though I totally agree with his point.

 

Taking a break from chess right now, because well burnout is a thing, but I can say two things to this regard:

1) I play 30 minute games on a chess.com competitor site because it's better supported over there, and have played long time controls OTB in USCF tournaments. 

2) Thinking long IS a weakness of my game, in that I tend to play longer time controls only mildly better than I play in rapid which makes me a relatively weaker player.

If people want to say I'm not strong enough to have an opinion that's their prerogative. 

Avatar of ricksterman
ShrekChess69420 wrote:

The point of openings don't matter is to show beginners how to play chess before learning openings. If you still hang pieces and pawns, don't start learning opening theory. Focus on not hanging pieces and pawns! Openings bear very minuscule effect to about 75% of the playerbase. Openings definitely don't matter AS MUCH as other things in chess. 

This makes sense as far as it goes, but a pertinent question is: If a beginner stops learning opening theory and decides that they should prioritize not hanging pieces, will they thus automatically stop hanging pieces? It seems to me that not hanging pieces is a skill that people tend to pick up gradually as they gain more experience, and just saying to oneself that you shouldn't hang pieces has only a marginal effect. So in the meantime why not learn some things that can actually be learned, such as tactics and opening theory? They may not come in terribly useful in some games, because you lose a piece in the very early stages, but you'll get more and more opportunities to use them as you progress.

Another nice thing about learning a reasonable amount of opening theory is that it increases the chances that in most cases you'll at least get through the opening without blundering and without falling behind in time. That gives you more confidence in the middlegame, more chances to actually win a few games (improving your enjoyment and motivation), and chances to make new and different kinds of mistakes, all of which can propel your learning.

Avatar of TheMachine0057

"Reason 1 Openings Matter: Games are decided by tactics, but tactics flow from position and ultimately the opening"

"This one is a bit of a double for why people say openings don't matter, but they actually do. This is the most common refrain for why openings don't matter, is that games are decided by tactics not openings and it's absolutely true. Even if you're a strong positional player and get a dominant positional advantage it's well known you need tactical sequences to finish the game. Thing is the reverse is also true. Tactics flow from strong positions, and blunders flow from weak positions. Positions start to be established in the opening. Play trash like the bongcloud and good luck getting winning tactics unless you're playing people who are otherwise way below your level. "

If losing was an ooze of some sort I would say losing oozes out of weak positions, not blunders.  Let me explain.  A person can refrain from blundering and still salvage a bad position, but only if his opponent makes mistakes.  Which is what Ben Finegold is talking about when saying "openings don't matter."  When there is nothing the player can do to salvage a position, then the position is resignable, and thus one doesn't blunder up the position, but rather justs "plays on" in a "lost" position.  A bad position doesn't always mean a lost position.  Keep that in mind.  So, the reverse is not always true.

"Reason 2 Openings Matter: Openings set the tone and style for the game"

"In the advanced French after 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6.a6, black has a big decision completely close the board with c4, or maintain the tension and semi-open game with Nh6, or start to open the game with f6. The three moves will lead to wildly different transformations of the position and different styles of games. Players, especially weaker players, have preferences for which positions they are comfortable with (closed, open, symmetrical, unbalanced) and can play well."

This kind of misses the point, though I disagree that a beginner should start out playing the French Defense.  That is just my take, anyway, what I was really trying to say is that Ben Finegold is mainly talking about beginning players and how the opening phase of the game doesn't really effect the outcome of the game as a whole.  Meaning, their opening knowledge has little to do with them winning or losing the said game, but more rather, general principles, and tactics.

"Reason 3 Openings Matter: All three phases of the game matter to your level"

"Your level is a composite of all the things that go into winning a chess game. Play worse in the opening, need to play better in the middlegame and endgame to make up for it. Play better in the opening and you can be a little weaker in other phases of the game. In the above clip Ben Finegold says "if you're 1500 and start the game h3 Rh2, it won't matter." I will counter any 1500 that starts h3 Rh2 is almost certainly stronger in other aspects of the game than other 1500s. Converting to a reasonable opening might raise them to say 1550 or even 1600, because they don't start every game behind. So why, if openings obviously matter do players (especially strong players like GM Ben Finegold) say openings don't matter? Well I think there are several good reasons for why this mistaken phrase is often repeated in chess circles."

There is no such thing as playing an opponent better in the opening without gaining a time advantage, or a material advantage.  If that is the case, then the game is probably already lost for the most part.  Yeah sure one can play an opening badly and get behind, however, the other player has to be able to make something out of it.  If they can't, which usually is the case when to humans play and its only the opening phase of the game, then the person behind in development will generally catch up and the only thing that would really need to be done is just add some common sense play nothing really fancy just improve piece placement etc just don't make a bad move.  I can tell from a personal experience, that having a lead in development, does help, but one simple unseen tactic could change the flavor of the game in any instant.  I wish I had the game to show you, but I do not.  Anyway this just goes to show that tactics mean more than the opening.  Yeah sure one can argue that 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 equals 1, but such would be an oversimplification, which I believe is what you are doing here.

That being said, it's entirely possible for a game of two beginners where one side gains a pawn or more and either blunders away the game or their opponent sets up a one move threat, and their opponent doesn't see it, and bam, the game goes the other direction.  This is what these people are talking about.  One can loose material or time in the opening and still make up for it in a game of beginners.  It's not that they will have better middle game or endgame skills its just that they see things that their opponent doesn't see at the right time, or their opponent will overlook something, etc.  Openings do matter yes, but, in a game of beginners, the opening doesn't matter much.  Learning openings can be a hinderance.  I don't think you ever tried coaching a beginner who had memorized openings and failed to play adequately in a game.  I have, and let me tell you, it was easy to pick at them. 

In conclusion, openings don't matter, but they do?!?!?

Avatar of TheMachine0057

I will also add that I know 3 people who never studied openings at all and they all play very well.