Don't be obsessed with Openings!!

Don't be obsessed with studying openings!! They are only 0.33 of the game. Study ALL of chess. My analogy would be, somebody who says to you, "I like to read biographies, but I always stop when the person reaches the age of 25."

You get even less than that for your effort IMO.  Every middlegame against every opponent will be leading towards an endgame.  Even if they blunder and you win early, it had been heading towards an endgame before that blunder.  At some point in the middlegame if you can't evaluate your endgame chances given different trades then you can't evaluate the position at all anymore.

So for example studying rook endgames will be of practical benefit to the great majority of your games.

Now study the French defense.  All the games you see something other than 1.e4 (with a few exceptions) will mean that knowledge is not useful.

Now structures and plans are useful, but in my mind this is middlegame knowledge.

No, you need to know openings fairly well if you want to reach a playable middlegame.

waffllemaster, if you play bullet or blitz than you have a point. But for standard or rapidplay OTB you need to know what you're doing in the opening, at let's say up to the 10th move, or you'll never recover.

I disagree.  At least I haven't run into it yet myself in tournaments.  My last tourney I was coming back from a 1.5 year hiatus and did zero opening prep.  My plan was to leave book with reasonable moves and attempt to play logically.  I got out of book by move 5 in 3 out of 4 of my games, and achieved good middelgames in all my games.  I was quite pleased to score 3 out of 4.

Actually I'd almost say the opposite... in blitz and bullet you need some opening knowledge to save time, otherwise you'll get into traps and bad positions too easily.  In long play you have enough time to play logically and achieve reasonable positions... at least vs sub masters in my experience.

I will agree that knowing no opening moves would likely get you into big trouble.  But IMO no need to buy an opening book or spend time dedicated solely to your opening.  Play over master games with your opening choice, learn a handful of moves, and the middlegame themes that occur and you'll be fine IMO.

u shud at least no da first 5 movves or somehtin so u no how to set up ur pieece nd wat works nd stuff...

Although it can certainly backfire of course...

Here's the opening from a game of mine from a few years ago.  So here I was yet again sitting at the board with no clue what I was going to play in the opening when I see a french... hmm.  So I decided to try a KIA and I fell for an opening trap I had no idea existed (partly because I never play the KIA lol)

I thought for a long time and played 6.Ng5.  Actually I was very proud of this game.  I dug in and managed to draw my higher rated opponent (by having some endgame knowledge no less :D

That's basically just a missed tactic. Of course it helps to know about it beforehand, but then this sort of thing could have happened in a middlegame as well.

You're right.  It may have been laziness at the board on my part.

But when opening disasters happen, this is how they happen between sub-master players.  You may unknowingly give them a theoretical edge all the time but even if they've learned this they're not going to be able to exploit it.

Of course they will... opening theory is not just to avoid traps.

I play chess in person with a friend of mine that is almost 1800 FIDE. Like one year ago I didn't know any opening theory, and after the first 10 moves I already had a compromised position - every single time.

You think a 1800 can't exploit positional weaknesses? They sure can: every single game I was suffering because of a weak square, a bad piece, or something misplaced. And once you have one of these weaknesses it's almost impossible to come back because they never let it go. You're always worse, and in a worse position you're doomed to make bad moves and, sooner or later, blunder something.

Nowadays I studied a ton of theory, and while my repertoire is not complete yet, I never get a bad position out of the opening with the above mentioned friend. Sure I improved a lot in this year, so it's not that I simply memorized move x and y...my positional understanding has evolved so I'm better prepared even for new situations.

But knowledge is a really important weapon, especially for non experienced players such as myself. You can't figure out OTB what's going on when you are at the early stages of the game, you just can't have the foresight.

There's a practical side to things. Avoiding basic traps/pitfalls (knowing where your favorite opening's potholes are on the road) is one thing.

Shorter time controls can almost force you to learn a decent amount of theory if you want to survive against strong competition.

If you are playing in a city where the weekend OTB is G/30,  are you really going to scratch your head wading through lines on your own while your opponent (who has booked up stuff) blitzes past them?

Sure, you can argue and say "oh, I'll just leave the book and we're both going to play chess" but the player who is more familiar with the nuances of that opening (where the pieces typically go, what the plans are for both players) is still going to have a SERIOUS advantage on the clock, not to mention play the  more accurate moves.

[Jules]ENGLISH, M*TH*RF*****R! DO YOU SPEAK IT?[/Jules]

+1

I agree=Controling the center of the board is more important=your midgame will decide the staratgy used to end the game

Be like Dillinger!

I think some opening prep is needed but I think it usually depends on your rating

I think you need to study all three aspects. Most times weaker players are lost coming out of the opening, so improving here will at least offer an equal chance in the middle and end game. I also believe that most of your core should be middle and end game study...since coming out equal from the opening, is not the end. I think most players know where there weaknesses are...and this should be where your improvement time should be.

If you learn your openings by playing games and going through them afterwards with a database and seeing what other moves and ideas there are in the position, openings are very helpful.

If you buy a Gallagher book and try to memorize all of the moves, openings are very detrimental.

On this site you need to know your opening or they will cut right threw you like a hot knife in butter.

royalbishop, challenge me to a game, I'll play an opening I don't know at all and won't look anything up and we'll see how it goes?

Depends on what level u are talking about.Anywhere near the neighborhood of 2500 FIDE it is All about the opening.Unless it's 960 Anything that will come up can be deeply studied to the point of obtaining enough of an advantage that a comparatively weak middle and endgame player can win easily.