Opening theory and engines are ruining the game.

The skills required for top level chess are changing.

Is this unusual?

Actually this applies to every level.

Have you not been watching how Magnus has won in the last decade? When it's crucial in a tournament or a match... either he's played a off beat line or he played an opening he is not noted for (and played an off beat line in that too)

When is the last time Carlsen pulled an advantage in the opening phase? Not as many as one would think... When is the last time he reach a line where Black had equality and he went on to win by out playing his opponent? More times than anyone else currently playing chess... hence the Goat tag to his name.

This is a kind of World War 3 but for chess

I propose professional chess players play the opening similar to engine games Perfect zOpening Book can made the first,8 to,,12 moves then the players continue.

I think opening theory and engines work well if you understand the moves alongside memorising them

Are they, though?

A top player don't have to be a computer expert if he has some second who is. And all other required skills remain mostly the same.

Grandmasters and masters and experts do 'think for themselves' on the chessboard.
If they didn't or weren't - they wouldn't reach those levels.
To play openings well - and openings are the most 'unsolved' part of the game - strong players need a good grasp of the 'solved' including basic checkmate positions - basic endings - basic tactics - and a good grasp and ability of navigating from the unsolved to the solved including through unfamiliar territory.

Have you read.a chess book, forum, DVD, or some other source of intelligence about chess that made you better? Congratulations, you have done the same thing, acquiring knowledge from another source and Utilised it in your own games.

Chess 960. Where we see Magnus' true strength, where he was picked up and tossed overboard by Wesley So.

So played excellently in that 2019 tournament, for sure. But that was five years ago - Carlsen has since won the 2024 Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge.

Chess 960 might have been a weak point for Magnus in the past, but it doesn't seem to be anymore ...

Wasn't that a competition with only a handful of players and missed the strongest ones like Hikaru?

Also, it had classical time controls, which makes it different from any previous 960 event so probably not comparable.

Well, in the 2019 FIDE 960 Championship, Carlsen didn't start playing until Semi-Finals (he was directly seeded in). At that point, there was only him and 3 other players: So, Caruana, and Nepomniatchi.

In the 2024 Freestyle Challenge, Carlsen started in an 8 player field: Ding, Caruana, Firouzja, Aronian, Abdusattarov, Keymer, and Gukesh.

Hikaru was invited, too - but he declined the invite.

So I'd say the 2024 Freestyle G.O.A.T. Challenge was the more difficult event. Although I'm not exactly a fan of the name of it.

Tournament games usually reach new positions by move 10-12 these days. Magnus will play bad moves intentionally just to get out of book. Getting out of a book is something pretty much every GM does. You have about 15-25 moves from then until you reach a typical endgame, these moves are not memorized, you cannot just go to sleep and win, that is nonsense. This shows you really do not understand high level chess. You are not saying something groundbreaking here. 
No offense, but you're 900 rated, you are in no position to talk about how Grandmasters approach the game.

Fischer made that comment back when engines were first being used. People back then were predicting chess would be solved and become entirely about theory... fast forward a few decades and that's not what actually happened. What happened was engines led players to play less common moves and place a greater emphasis on getting the opponent out of book. The power of the engine to develop an opening also meant people can play any move and flesh it out / make it viable... which makes surprising your opponent before they surprise you very important. This has led to all kinds of rare lines becoming popular, lines that back in Fischers day no one played. In turn, when a high level player senses they're in the opponents book, they'll often play an obscure move. So there's been a synthesis of personal creativity and the development of theory, and overall much greater emphasis on going out of book. This is alot different than what people predicted.

And TBH Fischer, while his comment was not unfounded at the time, he was also an egomaniac and his comment is suggesting that back in his day he did it all without engines so in a way he was a better player, I think that was part of the motive of his comment. In much the same way that your comment is an elaborate cope.

As a beginner you have to play based on principle the moment you get out of theory, which will at best happen by move 5-7 at your level, or earlier depending on the opening you choose. You aren't losing due to not knowing the theory, the theory doesn't even go deep enough for that at your level. 
You do have to learn opening theory in chess. But you can also minimize the theory by playing more positional and less common openings. 
If you want to get completely out of theory beyond move 6 at any level below 2000 just play the nimzo Larsen attack or the Richter Veresov attack as white, and the Nimzowitsch sicilian and tarrasch / semi-tarrasch as black. Practically no player below 2000 knows these openings very well, I can tell you that from experience. Players at 900 elo will definitely not know them. The state of the game is simply not as you describe.

Chess is not solved and it will never be, because humans will never become engines. Well, unless they install chips in our brains. Again, in your typical tournament game at GM level the players will reach a brand new position by move 10-12 usually.

How were you such a slave to theory but never rose above 900? You're doing something very wrong.

You should play tons of different openings and build your pattern recognition, but the reason you're losing is not due to the opening.

"You should play tons of different openings and build your pattern recognition, but the reason you're losing is not due to the opening."
An aspect of the forum topic - how to approach openings.
Is useful.
I would say that the opening in chess has always been the biggest pitfall in the game.
And that rote/robotic/imitative/limited approaches to the opening have been 'ruining' the learning curve and upward trajectories of players for centuries.
Example - a player new to the game or relatively inexperienced starts himself or is started with e4 c5 openings with both white and black.
And even more limited but still labyrinthine - its to be the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian for both study and play as most of the investment of time.
There's a lot of arguments and controversy among players about this.
Including among very strong players.
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"Najdorf! Najdorf! Otherwise you'll never learn tactics!"
'Najdorf is the best!'
are two of the shouts.
Much better though: overview of the openings.
And keeping the opening in perspective as just one element of a much bigger picture where openings are just one element of several.
Calmer claim: 'the Najdorf variation might be the worst possible choice for study and use by beginners and other players looking to build and balance their early years of navigation through the game."
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Another idea.
What's the most primary purpose of 1) e4.
Rhetorical questions:
Why is it the most popular first move for white among masters and up?
Is it because of indoctrination from the top?
What about specifics?
Idea: Understand instead of memorize/follow.
If I had to pick a reason (among several) - 1) e4 is the one way to confront black's g-knight before it even moves.
White is saying: 'I know if I play anything else - you can and so often will reply Nf6 right away.
So you want to have an Alekhine's defense?'
Black's reply far over 90% of the time: 'No. I don't and we aren't.'
So instead its c5 or e5 or e6 or c6 as reply most of the time.
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Constantly missed point:
e4 is the most common first move - 
but Nf3 and Nf6 are played more often than any other moves for white or black.
In other words - overall - Nf3 in front of his f2-pawn is played more than e4 or d4 or c4 in the opening moves.
Same with black and Nf6 in front of his f7pawn.
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And a lot of opening ideas are about white trying to upset black's knight at f6.

As someone who mostly hasn't bothered learning openings (just starting to dip my toe in now), I've learned that while "I wasn't doing openings", in reality I was learning how to play the Italian.

Openings are unavoidable, you either pick them up subconsciously as I did, or consciously as many other people do.

'Principles' in the openings were made to be broken.
And are broken. Constantly. Including by top players.
And including in 'the main lines' of openings.
Most of us here have probably heard most of them or seen most of them ...
'Knights before bishops'
'Castle early'
'Connect your rooks'
'Don't move the Queen early'
'Don't make a lot of pawn moves'
'Try to not move anything twice in the opening'
'Get a pawn or pawns into the center'
'Control the center'
'Develop your pieces'
'Don't play passively. Don't lose any tempos.'
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Idea: However good all that stuff looks ... or how obvious
that's not what gets you through.

Well... you see....you have 2 hours/40 moves, most of which is spent on the middlegame/endgame. It saves time.

There are different ways of going at openings and opening theory.
The key might be efficiency?
One might think so ...
but others might say:
'No. The idea of the openings is to 'enter into problems'. There's no shortcuts and issues in the openings go on and on. Openings weren't meant to be 'efficient' so they're not. The game is 'set up' that way.'
Openings are 'efficient' at tying up people's time.
The game was designed with that in mind.
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A friend of mine is a master chess player.
He's often complained to me that having a lot of time in front of him and 'time to kill' is a problem for him. That it weighs on him. In general. Not chess.
I'm the exact opposite.
I see available personal time stretching out in front as a privilege and advantage and comfort. Too much time? Not if you make time serve you.