Does chess openings really matter if you will win or not?

I think you guys are overanalyzing finegold's comment. It's not like he took the time and effort to prepare a lesson on why openings don't matter. He was distracted and streaming, and trying to find the little distinctions just seems off to me. 

I think what he meant was just that learning theory is not a great use of time.

Opening principles is not the same as opening theory.

Of course it is. But he undermines the concept of opening principles in the same time with this hyperbole. 

Opening principles don't quite fit under a single roof. At the same time, it is also just the study of learning how to play good and reasonable chess... in the opening

Agreed. Totally. 

I can't tell if you're agreeing or not.

Yes.  Slow (30+ minute) chess give you enough time to think of the best move.

Dan Heisman goes so far as to say that time controls between 10-25 minutes can hinder development by causing bad habits. I encourage all to read the following Novice Nook of his: https://web.archive.org/web/20140627030447/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman115.pdf
It's an interesting article, because he does list the benefits of playing blitz, and of playing slow, but then explains why intermediate controls hinder growth.

Hikaru occasionally plays dubious openings ... simply because he trusts that he's strong enough to outplay his opponent later in the game.

Even if his opponent is a world Top-10 player, like Wesley So:

Or a Super Grandmaster prodigy, like Jeffery Xiong:

I think most of the folks here (including me) are disagreeing with that 100%.  

Let's start with this:

• Opening theory means knowing the lines of an opening
• Opening principles means knowing the general ideas on how to play in the beginning of a game

When you say "knowing openings" it generally means (and Finegold meant, and most people understand it as) "opening theory, opening lines"

Almost all games between players under 1500 are won and lost on tactics (check your own games to test the validity of that statement).  No matter how well you and/or your opponent knows an opening, you eventually get to a point when you are "our of your book."  At that point, tactics and strategy are everything.  For players under 1400, that could be as soon as move 3 or 4.  (E.g., I know a little of the French Defense -- and that's what I *always* play against 1 e4 these days.  In an OTB game last week (I was black) the game started 1 e4 e6 2 g3.  What?  "2 g3"?  What was that?  I'd never seen it before in my life.  I was already out of my "book".  That's what happens at levels like ours.  Tremendous knowledge of the French defense wasn't going to help me at all).

Opening principles and tactics.  Not openings.

It's such a boring thing to repeat on and on again, tactics would be more important than openings or positional play. Of course I've lost or won all my games on tactics, but those had been prepared by the opening and strategic play.

***

Coming back to GM Finegold, in the above quoted video he stated "opening doesn't matter".

Now look what he is teaching his class: 

U1400 Class with GM Ben Finegold -- Opening Principles

And guess what, he doesn't even teaches them opening principles as such but only mentions them by the way. He walks them through Queen's Gambit accepted/declined and other theoretical lines.

Therefore it is ridiculous if he says in the other video "openings" didn't matter under 1500.

But, and here's the key:

If you have mediocre openings and great tactics, you can win a lot.  If you have great openings and mediocre tactics, you're not going to win a lot.

So, for players who are U1500, who have both mediocre openings *and* mediocre tactics, the best way to improve in the short run is tactics.

That's fine with me, but you've got at least reach a mediocre level of understanding in openings to understand the game. You'll waste your time looking for tactics in the first move. You've got 20 legal moves and so has your opponent. 

Do you want to calculate all possibilities before your first move? 

Oy! 

That's fine with me, but you've got at least reach a mediocre level of understanding in openings to understand the game

Here we go again.  Are you talking about lines of openings (opening theory?) or opening principles?  Most of us are saying that opening principles take care of that!  You know the drill -- try to control the center, develop pieces, general chess tactics awareness, king safety, etc.  That will get anyone of that level to the 8th or 10th move in almost all of their games.  And if they fall for an opening trap (Fried Liver, whatever) -- well, that's actually a tactic.  So, after the game, learn what you did wrong, and (presumably) never fall for it again.

Look, I'm a person who doesn't follow this advice either.  I do study some openings a bit.  But I'll be the first to admit that at least 80% of the time, all my opening-line knowledge beyond the third move is irrelevant, because my opponents get me out of book anyway. 

As I wrote above, I know some lines of the French.  Last week (I go out and play Monday nights) I played the French (against a guy who is better than me!).  The game started 1 e4 e6 2 g3.  So, I was completely out of book by move two.  That was last Monday night.  The same thing happened last night, against a different guy (a guy who is not quite as good as me).  I was black and played French.  The game started 1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Bd3.  That's not in anyone's book. I know enough about opening theory to know that move 3 was weird, and enough about opening principles to figure out that move 4 Bd3 is a terrible move (it blocks his d-pawn) and that black is already ahead.  But you know what?  That didn't help me.  I made two tactical mistakes during the game -- he made one.  And he won.  So, two Monday nights in a row, two games of French, all my study of French lines was 100% irrelevant.

And that's going to happen a lot for U1500 players.  I know enough to know that I need to get better at tactics, not openings.  And most chess coaches will say the same thing.

To understand Ben Finegold's point (which, admittedly, was a bit of hyperbole): he believes in making "good moves", and not making "bad moves".

He doesn't care if these good moves are theory or not. If it's a good move, he applauds it. If it's a bad move, he'll mock it.

When he talks about "openings don't matter", he essentially is saying: quit worrying about Opening This or Opening That. Just learn to play good moves. Develop a knight. Don't hang your bishop. Capture your opponent's queen, if they hang it by mistake. Don't get checkmated on move 5.

These are things that he would call (in an overly simplistic way, to prove a point): good moves.

So when a 1500 is asking him about openings, he gets annoyed ... because, from his perspective, a 1500's issues aren't with "which opening should I study?" ... their issue is that they tend to make bad moves.

They hang pieces. They miss simple tactics. They put their pawns on awkward squares, then lose because of it ... and for some reason, they often blame the opening variation as the reason.

In reality, these are issues that have very little to do with the opening at all.

That's the point that (I believe) Finegold was trying to make ... in his distinctly Finegold way.

I'm talking about opening principles, meaning general awareness how to set up your pieces in the first phase of the game. Definitely not learning book lines. I think we're cool with that.

I just joined the discussion again because of this – in my humble opinion – idiotic video of GM Finegold: 

Ben explains why openings don't matter

Compare what he claims here for U1500 and what he actually teaches in his coaching lesson for U1400:

U1400 Class with GM Ben Finegold -- Opening Principles

He contradicts himself in so many ways I can only bang my head on the next wall. From a didactic point of view his lesson is also a catastrophe, but that's another pair of shoes. 

I'm fine with your fine Finegold interpretation (), but what he explicitly  tells is somewhat different. And what he does in that lesson.

I like agreeing with folks -- and we are in agreement on both things!

1.  Learn opening principles not opening lines/theory

2.  Finegold's video exaggerated so much as to make it bordering on idiotic -- in this case because it lends itself to easy misinterpretation (I interpreted it like @Stil1 did.) 

(Personally, I really really dislike his style -- certainly in this video.  Far too negative, even though I guess it's supposed to be cynically humorous or something.  Whatever.  Too much negativity in the world, even if it's supposed to be funny.  I don't like it and after 2-3 videos of his, I completely stopped watching him -- so perhaps my view of him is skewed and ill-informed, I dunno.).

you just agreed with me, let me rephrase, Once you know one or two openings and a couple basic defenses, you are good to go openings-wise.

Actual quotes from the video:

"Openings don't matter when you want to raise your rating."
"Stop thinking about openings."
"Openings have nothing to do with chess."
"Openings don't matter, it's irrelevant."
"That's the biggest mistake all low rated players make... openings don't matter at all.
"They matter zero."
"Openings are irrelevant."
"Opening doesn't matter at all."
"If you have a coach and they like opening this and opening that, get a new coach."

Your response?

hE diDnT sAY oPenInG sTUdY DiDnt MatTer

I don't believe you can play chess without learning tactics, I play Puzzle-rushes all the time.