People who religiously play bad openings, why?

I recently had this game:

 The guy challenged me to a bunch of rematches and he always played the same bad opening wether he was white or black. He fianchettoed both bishops, castled kingside and then did nothing about my h-file attack, where I mated him 4 times in a row.
At some point I asked him, why he kept playing an opening that is obviously very easy to beat with the same trick every time, but he didn't answer.
I've seen the same with people who play the scholars mate (people also try to play it as black for whatever reason). You beat them, they rematch you, you beat them with the same trick 3-4 times and they never answer when you ask them why they do it.
Why do people do this?

It is a very interesting case. He did try making small adjustments in the four games but lost every time.

I think he possibly didn't reply because he doesn't speak English well. He has never responded to any notes on his page in English or made any forum posts.

You neglected to say that he switched opening in a final fifth game and beat you.

It is possible he appreciated the lessons you gave him. His rating has jumped 50 points since you played.

However, he is back to the same double fianchetto openings.

I know he spoke english because we talked during the game. You're right, he beat me as soon as he changed the opening which makes it even more weird to me why he didn't adjust earlier. He didn't even have to change his whole opening as double fianchetto could be viable. He'd just have to be more aware of the h-file.

Well then it is not the fault of the opening, but the fault of the player playing it. Carlsen can probably pull this opening out of his hat and manage to get a playable game. Not to mention what would happen if you were his opponent.

I like to play this same setup as you where you try to trade bishops and embark on an h file attack.  If I may offer you some advice fine sir I would recommend not trading bishops immediately after playing Bh6. I would play h4 instead of Bxg7 because with your bishop on h6 he can’t play the common defenseive move h5 locking the position down. As a general rule in these kinds of positions don’t trade bishops before you can either play h5 or until he moves the rook away from f1

Do you see why this is better? If you wait to trade bishops then black can't play h5 nor can he slide his rook over to the h file both common defensive ideas in these kinds of positions. In your original game after 8. Bxg7 ?! black could've played h5 and he wouldve been just fine.

It's possible your opponent couldn't solve it over the board but knew that setup should be ok and was trying to figure it out. As far as going for Scholar's mate in every game there was Bernard Parham who taught a lot of young players to do that on purpose because he actually thought it was a good way to play, but it seems more likely those opponents are just going through that phase themselves and eventually they will figure out better ways to play. I don't believe everyone can make progress over the board playing one game after another... maybe in some time when your opponent studies their games they will figure out where they went wrong and when you play them again they may offer improvements.

(Personally, there are a couple bad openings I religiously play in blitz, Nxe4 in the 2 Knights, Nxe4 in the 4 Knights Scotch, and the reason there is I get good results with them, not even just when people fall for the traps. Once I played a titled player who play Ng5 in the 2 Knights and played one of the refutations and creamed me after Nxe4, then thinking this was not the best time to try to learn the mainline over the board I went for the Ulvestad and lost, the Hungarian and lost again, and then I went back into the Nxe4 garbage line that I usually play and actually managed to win from the theoretically lost position. That was the only game I ever won against him.)

As white and black I religiously play openings that are not optimal but not bad either.

Sometimes players at our (weak) level will play dumb openings just to get the opponent out of his comfort zone.

I often meet the Alekhine with 5. Ng5, for example.

Yes in this particular game black has problems either way, but this is a very common attacking strategy seen in a variety of different openings, and as I was explaining that in general it is much better to wait to trade the bishops.

Take for example this 2 minute bullet game I just played in the Staples13 variation of the Sicilian Alapin. If I had traded bishops immediately black would have been fine, but by pushing h4 and h5, without trading first, white's attack becomes crushing.

I want to clarify something. I'm talking about objectively bad openings. The part where my opponent let me open the h file every time was what was bad about his opening, not the fact that he played double fianchetto, that can be viable. I'm talking about objektively bad openings like Schloars Mate.

I don't see how Pf6 makes that opening playable. 

If you want a hypermodern opening, you better play the pirc. b6-Bb7-e6 without fianchettoing the other bishop isn't too bad either.

In bullet these openings can still work of course.

8...0-0

8...a5

8...d6 all seem like good choices.

When you say after 10.Ne2 this looks really bad, if not losing?  At what level are you talking about?

Below a certain level the opening doesn't matter much. I can probably play 1.a4 2.h4 and beat the OP or 1.Nh3 2.Na3 which is quite funny. If you make the assumption that black knows the opening then you also have to make the assumption white knows the opening and plays good moves or your analysis is biased.

In all those 3 variations white's position is much easier to play. White can play h4 which more or less forces h5. That weakens the kingside and it seems black is going to castle kingside in any case. Black needs a lot of moves before he can launch some sort of pawnstorm on white's queenside. Fianchettoing the white square bishop didn't really help. The pirc would have been better. So the opening just doesn't make much sense. Why would you play this, if the pirc is a clearly superior version of this?

The position being easier to play for whitei can understand, and agree with.  I was just curious as to what level of ability you were referring to when you said "looks really bad, if not losing"  

Thanks for the clarification.