is it bad to listen to Simon Williams’s opening advice?

his style is risky but it has practical value. it's hard to defend at any level. however you should stay away from lines that have a narrow path to clear equality or a forced draw, however complicated they start.

I'm pretty sure his primary audience is intermediate club players, where that stuff all works great. But if you're close to NM, you don't really need surprise openings to beat club players anymore, and probably should focus on more solid choices. I went through a whole Simon Williams phase too, and while it was fun, the only opening of his that I still sometimes try to go into is some of his Dutch lines.

He says himself that it's not his opening repertoire, it's his blitz repertoire.

Most of these openings are for fun (dubious gambits and such) but a lot of his stuff is also serious (french, London if ur a busy player, dutch, english defense, and I'm bold enough to say Evans Gambit)

If you're NM level what the heck are you doing on the forums asking such questions you probably know better than 99% of people in here

A full-hearted ‘Yes’ to Simon. You do not earn your money by playing chess, right? Then playing chess should be all about gettin’ results…BY HAVING FUN! The opening is just a (short) phase of the game… A game at NM level is won because of a better handle in middle- or endgame, not in the first 10 moves of the game. So…the opening is all about getting a playable middle- and endgame…in which you simply do know more about specific tactics and positional / strategic motifs than your opponent(s). Simon does a great job in advicing you what to play to give your opponent many charges to go wrong early on in the game. Which Is fun to experience… It takes time to fully comprehend / understand the ins and outs of his openings and it’s subtelities. Stick to it and you’ll be rewarded with a lot of fun games and full points.

Obviously you haven’t seen his work on the King’s Gambit, Chigorin or read his latest work ‘the iron English’.

No, I don't collect his stuff, so haven't seen it all. I have gone through 3-4 of his chessable courses though, and have his French book. There's nothing wrong with playing dubious openings if that's your thing, and they can definitely be a lot of fun under the right circumstances (like blitz). But, on the other hand, you can also have fun playing stronger moves too! Sound openings doesn't necessarily mean boring ones.

@earikbeann: true that! But for most players, chess is the most fun giving the opponents the opportunity to go wrong (and punish this)…NOT playing the (objectively) strongest moves… 

I thought his stuff on the 4 knights was pretty good. One thing he said that was interesting was that in many cases he wanted to leave it up to the viewers to work out the fine details of many variations. His goal was to explain the main ideas of the variations and recommended working things out with an engine. Also, in the cases where he suggested a tricky line he was honest about it and showed how black could immediately get an equal game. He justified this by saying that its not so bad if the worse thing that can happen is that you get to play a game with equal chances. Something about that kind of rubs me the wrong way though.....I feel white should always try to play for an advantage out of the opening even if it is a very small advantage. I dont think I would play those tricky lines in an important game....I might in blitz though.

One complaint I have on his 4 knights content is that the spanish variation where black doesnt play Nd4 is significantly more complicated than he leads his viewers to believe. Also he doesnt give complete games in most cases....probably he did that so he could cover more material but I prefer to see complete games....I find it inspiring to see how it all works out in the end.

Openings are certainly very important at the NM level lol You have to have decent preparation if you're going to get an edge with White or equalize with Black. For example I played an NM the other day OTB and never got anything with White because I didn't really know what the move was in a Richter-Rauzer line. A draw is a good result of course but I wasn't ever really pushing.

No. Obviously. I was laughing too much when he ripped off the pensioners.

God rest the merry Englishman....hahaha. Its always fine weather for a cup of tea.

this should be a motto in a lot of areas of life!

Well, you’re proving my point! You didn’t lose right out of the opening, but didn’t know what to do in the middlegame either… As long as you know what to do in the middlegame or endgame, < IM, most of the openings would work ( even the dubieus ones Simon is ‘recommending’).

if you think that vs an opponent who does his homework you will emerge from the opening with a bad position, then probably the lines are not good to play

What about lines where you emerge from the opening with an equal position with white? Is that good enough in your opinion? A while back I read somewhere(may have been "five crowns" or perhaps one of the Kasparovs books) that is how Karpov beat people with black. He would equalize early in the game and since there were still a lot of pieces left, he was able to play for more.

White doesn't have a forced win by moving first. With perfect play from black, you're going to end up in an equal position unless you're playing a dubious opening, in which case you'll end up worse.

Yes of course.....but its one thing if black equalizes by move 30 but something totally different if he equalizes by move 10 . With perfect play black can equalize but shouldnt white make him work for it? If white doesnt make him work for it maybe black will get the idea in his head that it is black who should play for a win even if the position is still objectively equal.