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

Certainly some theory is going to be learned in the process of trying to eliminate problems in games after you see them in practice, in a more organic growth of learning theory. You play a game, analyze it, and if you came out of the opening a lot worse off, find something better that works for you and that you understand. In that process, you can learn some of the more common traps or trappy lines, and hopefully remember it the next time someone plays it against you.

The problems with the learning theory are that most people end up trying to memorize lines and most of the games below a certain rating are going to reach a position you've never faced before, or that is been played as theory, in less than 10 moves, often within 6-7.

With a very few exceptions, most of the games I've ever played don't have a matching position in my previous games or any games from any database I have access to in less than 10 moves. If I don't leave theory, my opponent does and it often is in a way that is perfectly playable (doesn't create any major weakness to be exploited out of the opening).

Each move in any particular opening increases the amount of knowledge you need, since each move will likely have multiple potential replies and each one may rely on different theory/ideas. Unless your have a very good memory, then trying to learn all of that may be a poor use of time, especially when the players are normally losing the games to problems later in the game, regardless of how good they are out of the opening or how closely they hew to theory. Or a position is reached that isn't in your know theory that requires calculation and tactical ability more than any specific theory.

@martin_stahl - But isn't that the point in learning theory? Deviations from theory are almost always sub-optimal moves, so you have a theoretical advantage as soon as your opponent goes off the beaten path.

Does this mean you will win? Of course not. Is it a substitute for concrete analysis? Of course not. Is it better than nothing? Sure.

@Spielkalb and @NikkiLikeChikki, you both have valid perspectives. Learning a little bit of theory can certainly help. I'm in agreement, there.

Though I believe my perspective has some validity, too.

Personally, I don't put too much weight on learning theory (for lower-rated players), because I believe it's more important for the player to learn how to find good (principled) moves at the board, in any position (familiar or not), and to do whatever they can to hone that skill.

Playing using principles is an excellent way to practice that skill, rather than having to rely on previous study and memory. Especially for beginners.

Of course there are going to be mistakes and losses, regardless of how prepared you are. And of course, the player will have to think at some point, and not rely blindly on principles (nor on theory). Chess is a thinking game, and one should be expected to think while playing.

But that's also part of the organic learning curve, as @Martin_Stahl pointed out. You make mistakes. You learn from them. You improve, little by little.

I rather like the idea of getting crushed by poor opening play, and then learning from it ... rather than the opposite approach: of learning the proper lines beforehand, without suffering the defeats that come from opening mistakes.

I believe suffering those defeats is beneficial, and more instructive ... those losses can yield tremendous insights ... and learning proper theory too early can rob the player of those important lessons.

But I suppose every perspective is like a coin ... it always has another side.

Yeah, it's the point of theory but for lower rated players, studying up on why X move in the Drangledorf Variation of the Scandinavian () that you'll likely never see again and probably won't remember when you do, is likely not going to make one bit of difference in any future game. By lower rated, I'm certainly saying sub-1800 and in many cases it could be said of sub-2000.

That 0.2-0.4 extra you gain from knowing the right reply, when there are 6 other moves that are within 0.1 of that isn't normally going make a bit of difference in the outcome. The amount of time one needs to take learning that much theory, even if their memory is up to the task, is better spent trying to eliminate the other errors.

I will say, that if you have a great memory and have very good tactical and endgame skills, you can probably use opening theory and study to gain rating, because that is likely going to get you to a middlegame with enough of an advantage to put those other skills to use.

For a lot of people, its those other skill that are lacking and losing most of their games.

I have to say I disagree. I can bang off a list of opening principles that you could memorize almost immediately, but they're pretty much useless unless you learn to apply them practically, and the same can be said of opening theory. Learning a bit of theory isn't very hard and isn't very time consuming. As I've said before, you can learn the basics of the Caro Kann in an hour, and if you wanted, you could play it for the rest of your life. Firouzja uses it in almost every tournament that he plays in, for example, and I hear he's pretty good. Additionally, you don't have to learn it all at once.

You also make the somewhat unreasonable assumption that you can somehow *study* how to not make mistakes, and you assume that things like doing puzzles first, have the same kind of one-to-one correspondence in time spent to learning. Does an hour of doing puzzles help more than an hour of doing some theory work? I tend to doubt it. I've done zillions of puzzles and they don't help much. As far as I know, there is NO surefire way of learning how not to blunder or how not to hang pieces and this all comes with playing games. Does playing three games of rapid improve you more than an hour spent on theory? I doubt it. Does analyzing two games for thirty minutes each help more than an hour of studying theory? Maybe, though maybe not. Most of the times when beginners lose a game it's because, surprise, they hung some pieces. Does analyzing games help with that? Not really. Analysis doesn't help with board blindness.

So once again, you're assuming that time is better spent elsewhere and that there's a one-to-one tradeoff. I wouldn't be so sure and it's an awfully big assumption that such a tradeoff exists.

I got wrecked here even through I did what I think are natural moves and he trapped me with the Petroff. https://www.chess.com/a/2SzmkwsbUjuE6

I believe I should learn the right moves to defend this? (This was bullet btw)

I can learn the basics of the French Defense in 5 seconds: for black: e6, followed by d5. Often, the c-pawn does well to go to c5.

Then play chess from there. Lesson done.

Try it out. Lose a lot. Get crushed. Adjust and experiment. Review your losses. Try moves that you didn't try the first time.

How does black's king knight get developed? The king bishop? The queen knight? The queen bishop?

Try different things, and see what works and what doesn't. Lose. Adjust. Learn. Repeat, repeat, repeat ...

Little by little, you'll be discovering how the play the opening, and learning the ideas behind the moves ... rather than being spoon-fed the ideas beforehand.

By the time you become proficient at the defense, you'll know how to handle anything white throws your way. You won't have to think, "... which variation is this, again? What was the correct line ...?" Because, instead, you'll be thinking, "Hmm. White has cut off that diagonal for my bishop. So I'll develop it to this diagonal, instead ... I've learned, from experience, that this usually works out quite well..."

If your opponent ever goes "out of book", it won't feel any different for you, because you never relied on being "in book" in the first place ...

Yes, eventually you may want to learn proper theory ... but by that point, you'll have developed a strong positional understanding of the opening, and many of the theoretical lines that you learn will align with what you've already figured out, on your own.

@Martin_Stahl, I think we can all agree to the point that learning obscure opening lines hidden in strange variants won't profit anyone. Except you're facing an opponent who's known of playing exact that obscure line. 

But on the other hand, wouldn't you explain to a beginner the advantages of e4 compare to a3 and maybe go to the Italian tho show them how to apply the opening principles? Where is the line between "just enough" to understand the principles and "to much" theory?

A fitting quote from one of my favourite philosophers, Immanuel Kant:

Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer,  Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind.

(roughly translated: Thoughts without experience are empty, experiences without thoughts are blind.)

Yes, it matters a lot.

@Stil1, in my understanding learning theory and practising don't necessarily have to contradict or exclude each other. For example, a friend of mine and I wanted to learn about the Sicilian Dragon variation.  So we started some daily games and both prepared to this opening. We've learned quite a lot by this kind of approach. And that's not for remembering lines, but understanding what are the ideas behind this. 

If Openings didn’t matter, then no Openings would consistently score better than others.

i think thats almoust most important thing

That's a fair point.

I probably seem like a contrarian in this thread, but it's mostly because of how I was taught. I had an NM coach whose philosophy was to show me the bare minimum, then let me struggle.

Only after I'd struggled, and made mistakes, would he then reset the board, and talk me through it.

His belief was that the student learned better by first trying the wrong things ... and then seeing what happens, as a result.

I believe I learned a lot from that approach, so I'm often quick to shout, "Make mistakes! Learn from them!"

Actually, none of the main dozen or so openings score better than any other if you look at win%. They all pretty much score the same with differences of maybe 2% at maximum. The important thing isn't *which* opening you choose, but that you know the theory of the opening you do choose.

I will agree with @stil1 on one point that knowing opening theory doesn't help a whole lot. I was talking to a WGM friend of mine when she faced the Nimzo-Larsen. She had no idea what to do and I was telling her after she played moves that this or that was or wasn't theory, and she was like wtf. She knows shockingly little theory and she knows it, and yet she's rated over 2500. Why? She has great board awareness, great positional understanding, and a great tactical eye. I could know 15 lines of theory and she could know zero, and she would beat me 100 times out of 100 unless she fell for some trap that I had elaborately set up because I studied her games and she always plays the same openings. Probably not even then, though.

But the question is, would the time I spent learning theory have helped me become a stronger tactician? Would it have made me have great board awareness? Would it make me understand intuitively what makes a position good? I kind of doubt it. I try, but I'm just not very good at it.

The best you can say is that knowing theory is better than not knowing theory, that being prepared is better than not being prepared, and that sometimes it helps win you a game.... sometimes.

@Stil1: You've been lucky you had a mentor. I was more or less isolated on the countryside in Germany and studied books in lack of having chess partners. That didn't went well because due to my knowledge I was almost always better than my opponents. So they lost their interest in chess and didn't want to play me any more. I'm talking about times here before the internet was available for common citizens. 

I'll concede that knowing some theory is good, at a basic level. But I believe that relying on theory too much could turn it into a crutch.

I was part of a chess club, several years ago, and one day, the resident master set up a position on a board (a middle-game in a Sicilian), and said, "What do you think black's plan should be here?"

An expert (the second-highest player in the club) responded dismissively, "I don't play the Sicilian." Then he walked away, to do something else.

The rest of us stayed to analyze. And the master showed us ideas playing with (or against) minority attacks on the queenside. Some of those ideas I still find useful today.

But that expert's response reminds me a lot of some of today's book-studious players ... once the game steers away from their book-knowledge, they feel uncomfortable, or disinterested.

They've begun to feel "safe" only in the lines they've studied, and they don't like the feeling when things steer away from the familiar ...

For that reason, I think it's best to keep theory study to a minimum (at least until one reaches a higher level, where it becomes necessary). Otherwise, one might become a theory junkie, and forget how to actually play chess on their own ...

Ah. Yes, times have certainly changed.

A lot of players today don't even own physical boards, nor have they needed to squint at descriptive notion in dusty old books.

1. P-K4  P-QB4!

Go away with that! We don't know that any more!