Memorization of Chess Openings is Beyond Stupid

    Although I've never been very serious about chess, I've always really loved the game. I once long ago was a pretty strong player and almost reached candidate-master (2000-2199 FIFA) level after starting out as a class E and D (1000-1199; 1200-1399) player. How did I do it? I jumped 500-600 points within two and a half years after studying tactics (70% roughly) and endgames and chess puzzles almost exclusively. This was roughly 30 years ago. Later, 20 years ago, as a coach of several Colorado state championship scholastic chess teams and of my own children . . . I mostly taught them tactics and endgames and chess puzzles but did give my players a very aggressive gambit opening and the French Defense (in the form of about 40 COMPLETE games of less than 20 moves for each opening) for them to study. That seemed to do the trick very well, put them on the right path and let the kids control their own destiny. OK, now to initiate the discussion thread . . . .

   Memorization of Chess Openings is Beyond Stupid  

   If you are a grand master or serious GM wannabe, then for you perhaps there is some value in memorizing chess opening . . . for anyone else, it's a monumental waste of time and sure to make you play worse chess than you now already do.  Chess is about committing to the struggle of ideas and hopefully overcoming your opponent with your better ideas and better execution.  When you memorize openings you cripple all hope of developing that necessary ability in yourself.  Yes, yes in Blitz chess or Bullet chess this may be the path to more victories HURRAH!  But what have you gained?  You beat someone by using some dead GM's analysis upon him, not by using your own resources.

   The reason that grandmasters can and do invest so much time studying openings and why it would be a very bad idea for 99.6% of the rest of us "ordinary" players to study openings very deeply is simply because they are professionals. They have up to 6-7 hours or more every day they can allot to chess study which for the rest of us would be a total disruption of our lives. If you enjoyed the game of tennis and were a pro or highly dedicated to becoming a pro you might devote five hours a week in the gym or footpaths working on flexibility; strength and endurance in addition to, say, 40-50 hours working on all the actual aspects of tennis itself . . . if, however, you merely enjoyed the game like 99% of all tennis players do -- you would never dream of such a preposterous waste of your valuable time and life. Now, having said that and implied that too much studying of openings is a serious waste of time for ordinary players: how should one study openings for best results when playing?

   I recommend you study openings exactly as I had my scholastic championship chess teams study openings: study whole games. How, exactly?

A. First study very short games within your opening system: say, 5-20 moves long. Once you've seen all these early debacles (traps to avoid and traps to spring), you've got a pretty good idea of what to be on the look-out for early on. This stage of your "opening prep" might take you two hours a week for 2-4 months.

B. Always remember how Emanuel Lasker advised players to open a chess game: In the first 7-12 moves (while fighting for the center and for central control) look to move both center Pawns and each of the four minor pieces (both Knights and both Bishops) once only -- this is not always possible, but seek to move them at least one time and castle (unless Queens have already been traded . . . because in those queenless games you'll have to evaluate the situation more closely to see if the King is better placed to fight for the endgame in the center or needs to be protected in the corner by castling).  So fighting for the center:  remember if possible to move each of the four minor pieces once each if practical (4); move the two center pawns once each (2); and castle if desirable(1).  Thus 4 + 2 + 1 = hitting all 7 of Lasker's goals.

C. Remembering first that tactics and endgames are the real fun (and the real key to success) in chess and that setting up traps at the cost of strong positional play is pretty stupid; but that setting up traps and other tactics and threats as part of strong positional play is what the pros do . . . now expand your study of your short games in your openings to roughly 21-30 moves long and at the cost of, say, two to four hours a week of study for about half a year you'll have a tremendous idea of what kind of tactical resources are available for both Black and White in your opening.

D. Finally, while still looking at short games and medium-length games in your opening system from time to time . . . play out your opening in master and GM games of 60 moves or longer. What you'll look for is the kind of pawn structure and the kinds of endings that typically pop up and for the kinds of ideas that win and draw; as well as the kind of ideas that don't work in those endgames.

Good luck!

Nice FIFA rating!

  Sorry, but you're dead wrong.  Chess is a game of understanding, not rote memory.  If you don't understand why a move is good or best you should never make it (time trouble is not relevant for this discussion:  and the blitz and bullet practice of memorizing long lines of irrefutable moves that some players adopt shows the shallowness of those kind of games and those kind of players).  The idea in life is to find the authentic original you and then be true to it:  chess being a small part of life is best enjoyed by learning, challenging yourself and being yourself rather than trying to pass as a poor imitation of some unseen master somewhere.

You are beyond incredible!   I wish my son had your drive, although he is also gifted.  I am sending you, with your parents aproval, all the power and support I have to continue in chess.  Chess is great.   I wish you the best and hope you enjoy the game as I have for more than 50 years.

Opening theory makes sense for Confidence & Winning.

The Reason why many people hate opening theory so much, aside from Remembering opening lines, which I also do not like for a big part , and which is the Reason that I don't investigated and still don't investigate so much Time in it, is because they found out that it does not always work.
They, just the same as a lot of people watch to Barack Obama, think that every opening move should be his/her Hero Move.

While this isn't like that.

Let met explain those people something:

Your opponent does not always go with you in your lines, and can get our of Book! 


If he or she does, than first you know: She or he probably has a disadvantage now, or has found out a new opening move.
You must always go our from the first part and therefore think sharp and look for the possible advantage you have.

Second, You should know what the Current Situation is, or as how they say, what are the plans or what is the Plan behind this Ended Opening ( when the opening is not Ended, you and your opponent have fully played the opening as stands in the books. Finished Opening ).

With every move You must realize that your opponent can get out of Book, and than see Concretely what you must do, and the Current Strategies that would have been other when the opening was finished.



Than Remembering opening moves out of your Head is Healthy, far especially for short Time-Control ChessPlayers.

Opening Traps can be Fenomenal for short Time-Control Chess Players too.





The end, finally. 

I find the OP's idea of studying complete games starting with the shorter ones very interesting

u are absolutely right! most players will never and dont even want to reach levels where opening theory (and learning of lines behind the first 5 moves) plays a major role. one will profit so much more from simple standard advices and tactics. a standard advice like "put the rook on open/halfopen lines" in case you dont know what to do next is a really good example. simple things like that make the difference between 1200 and 1600 points. and the vast majority of players are in this category.

I try not to memorize lines just the ideas behind it. I also study pawn structures more since openings deal with them.

1. You're trying to emulate what masters are doing once they are already brilliant tactically and in endgames. They didn't start with opening study.

2. They aren't memorising lines. They are studying lines, working out the reasons for each players moves and why the resulting position may be superior to another line, and what the plan would be to take advantage of the features of the position.

Thats why I bought chessbase 11 with mega database. My openings I like I go over Gm games for variations and go through at least 100 before I actually use a opening in games.

To sum it up : memorizing is necessary. Only memorizing is insufficient.

What if you just like studying and memorizing openings?

It all depands what you want yourself.

If you want to become a better player stuying other stuff will do it faster but if you want to be the king of sub variation xyz and dont care to much about rating by all means study it. It is your time and your choice :)

Of course memorization is stupid.  I really like the way you think.   Thinking is what it is all about.  Like the intoduction to my profile, "chess is about understanding, not memorization."  We are not trying to be computers...we are human beings.  Yet the real game is inside of you.  How do you feel?  What are you strengths and weaknesses?  Who are YOU?   How do you react?  That is the challenge.  Know thyself.  

You may disagree with the OP, you may think the topic he has brought up is stupid, but the OP is certainly not stupid...

Is this thread Beyondo Stupid, or just plain vanilla stupid?

Hope no one is trying to memorize it.  That would be dumb.

I never realized how stupid I am until I tracked this thread.

         Thanks for all your input.  I will re-enter to make two related comments in response to the most "scathing criticism" I received from the person who said the argument was "bullcrap" and then said:

                     I know some tactics and endgames, and I've learned some opening theory.  Where's the problem?

          Can you see the "verbal" problem here?  1) In my discussion I too referred to "opening theory" as a good thing, a very great thing in fact.  But the opening theory I referred to was aligned with Emanuel Lasker's ideas of  a) while fighting for the center b) achieving the 7 goals enumerated above and c) I also mentioned that one way in which I taught my little chess champions was to give them about 30 very short games to play over in each of the two openings I recommended they use in championship play.  What is the difference between item b) and item c)? 

          To my conventional way of thinking, chess players have long got these two matters 100% backward:  almost all the books mostly ignore item b) and really concentrate on item c) and they call item c) "chess opening theory."  Clearly all of us can see that item b) from Lasker is actually chess theory and item c) is actually chess PRACTICE.  Once in awhile someone like the Everyman Chess publishing house (in, sadly, just a few of their opening books) combines idea b) and c).  That way of teaching particular openings is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the way that openings ought to be taught.

           What's the point here?  Clearly -- beginner or master -- you're going to have dramatically different pawn structures after playing the Petroff Defense vs. the resulting positions after initiating the Sicilian Defense.  Because of that, you'll normally expect to put your minor pieces and heavier pieces on distinctly different squares in one opening vs. in the other.  That being true, your middlegame and endgame plans must be very, very different. 

           In another person's discussion-thread about openings I made this comment . . . .

          According to this site's Game Explorer utility: the most common position reached in significant games after a dozen moves is the one reached after:

1.e4       c5
2.Nf3     d6
3.d4       cxd4
4.Nxd4   Nf6
5.Nc3     a6
6.Bg5     e6
7.f4       Be7
8.Qf3     Qc7
9.O-O-O  Nbd7
10.g4      b5
11.Bxf6   Nxf6
12.g5       Nd7**

       My research may be inaccurate and there well could be more popular "jumping-off" positions into the middlegame after say, 1. d4; but this Sicilian position was the one I discovered and believe to be the single most commonly encountered after 12 moves are played. 

          OK . . . so obviously if you play any version of 1. e4  or 1. e4 c5 that can transpose to this position (or for that matter, if you play chess at all) learning the ideas behind the best continuations from this position would be a godsend for anyone interested in improving their play, no?  Once these ideas are learned and understood . . . well I don't have to draw you a roadmap here . . . .  If you understand the ideas,then "studying" a line here beyond move 12, you would NOT need to memorize unrelated, distopian move orders and variations but rather would more or less deeply understand the position and more easily find the important threads so that if . . . IF . . . WHEN the opponent varies, which he surely will, you will not be as flummoxed. 

           Loved ALL of your comments.  Thanks again!

** By the way, notice how many of Lasker's 7 opening desiderata are as yet UNaccomplished in the presumed most common early midgame position which occurs!  You could find the same situation in the Ruy Lopez, QGD, or Nimzo-Indian after 12 moves.   Which  GASP! suggests that even the advice of a 27-year World Chess Champion is best used as a set of highly useful guidelines rather than as GOSPEL.  The same is obviously true of almost all other move-variations and move orders as well.  As far as actual "THEORY" of opening play, a la Lasker, another way of solving the issue is to say, "Fight hard for the center and connect the rooks as soon as practical to do so."