Development degree of an opening

I like what Mr Emu has said. Chess is an exceptionally concrete game and there’s almost nothing that applies to *every* position. In general, development is a great thing, but in some positions you may need to attend to specific factors of the position at hand. 

Why is development good?

If you can answer that, then you wont have to invent silly systems of evaluation that count the number of pieces developed. Instead you'll simply check whether the underlying factors are satisfied.

In chess those factors are typically king safety and piece activity. Activity is not merely mobility. A bishop on an open diagonal, a rook on an open file, sometimes those are bad pieces if they're only hitting empty squares with no ability to come into contact with something important in the future.

Just that line sounded like a religious sermon against technology  😉

Funny the first thing that came to mind with such a score was how it would do with KID 😉

Classical vs hypermodern thinking?

The Sicilian Najdorf Polugaevsky variation would be another example, where Black's a8-Rook, b8-Knight and c8-Bishop often remain on those squares right into the middle-game.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/worst-in-the-world-here-are-all-the-rankings-in-which-canada-is-now-last

Well, strange! It's  nothing to do with the Sicilian  Nadjdorf, whatsoever.  I'm puzzled 🙁

After 1.e4 many (all?) of the non-e5 openings fall behind in development in some lines. The Caro in particular comes to mind as an opening where sometimes black makes many-many pawn moves.

There is a hierarchy:
king safety > material > center > development
If you face imminent checkmate, then everything else is irrelevant.
If you can win one pawn, then that is enough to win a game, so it is often - but not always -  worth temporarily neglecting the center as well as development to win it.
The center is important: that is why many openings use non-developing moves, like 1 e4 c5 or 1 d4 d5 2 c4.

@tygxc I propose to increase devdeg up to 10, starting with devdeg = 0 and counting in the direct manner. 😎

With castling:

• +2 in order to develop pawns blocking bishops
• +5 in order to develop pieces (2 bishops, 2 knights, queen) outside of the 1st/8th rows
• +2 for castling (+1 for developping the king and +1 for developping the rook)
• +1 for developing the non-castled rook

Without castling:

• +2 in order to develop pawns blocking bishops
• +6 in order to develop pieces (2 bishops, 2 knights, queen and king) outside of the 1st/8th rows
• +2 for developping rooks (along the 1st/8th row)

What do U think?

We should possibly add also some points for the center control!

#29

"I propose to increase devdeg up to 10" ++ There are only 8 non-pawn pieces, not 10.

"+2 in order to develop pawns blocking bishops"
++ 'pawn moves are not developing moves' - Nimzovich

"We should possibly add also some points for the center control!"
Central control is different and of higher value than development.
There are 4 central squares d4-e4-d5-e5, so a count of central control can be 2-2, or 3-1, or 4-0.
Per Capablanca 3-1 is necessary for an attack.

Ok, let's keep your definition! 😎

It sounds like you're trying to find a mathematical, universal cheat-code to play the opening.

"Hmm.. How many points do I have? Only six? Better move a knight, then!"

Like a color-by-numbers chart.

I'm not sure if this approach would be more helpful or harmful in the long run, when it comes to one's development as a player. I'm thinking harmful.

It's far more useful (and instructive) to think like a human at the board, in my opinion - to identify the needs of the position, and to play the moves that best address those needs.

Otherwise, you may run into variations where your cheat-code formula doesn't work. But instead of trying to properly understand where you went wrong, you'll instead attempt to adjust your cheat-code to make it work again ...

Well, I just like to make all kind of theoretical constructions. Practically, I play a lot of unsound gambits. LoL 🤣

Fair enough! I enjoy theoretical ponderings, too.

I just see this point system as a potential bad habit ... some players might believe in it and start counting instead of thinking ... it can lead down a strange rabbit hole, where some obsessive players will begin assigning point values to every piece move and square, on every single move, trying to think more and more like an engine instead of a human ...