Shortcut!

Nowadays, there is a lot of opening theory. I prefer to use less known openings as a shortcut. Your opponent won't know about it, and probably won't find the right move! This also gives you more time to study endgames, tactics, etc. Do you take the shortcut or learn the theory?

Suggestions for sound shortcuts. On first move: b3, g3, Nc3, b4!?, f4!?

Other shortcuts: Bishop's Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4), Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6), and , the Scotch Four Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4)

I will quote GM John Cox from his book Starting out: 1d4!. "So hang on, you'll say, isn't this a Starting Out book? How can players rated 120-160 on the BCF scale (about 1560 to 1880 Elo) expect to grasp the intricacies of, say, the Botvinnik Semi-Slav? They don't need to be studying openings when the theory goes down to move twenty-odd when they don't know the first thing about the game.

Well, first of all, I think that's a patronizing tosh. Lower-rated players may not play as strongly as GMs, and they may not understand, recall, or have need of deep theory in their games to the same extent, but that does not mean they are not interested in knowing what the theory is, and it does not mean they can't improve by looking at it. Still less does it mean they shouldn't use the most thrilling openings in our game just because a lot of people have played them before (which is all 'theory' amounts to).

Secondly, I think everyone ought to play main line openings most of the time. If you want to be a strong player, then you have to play strong moves. It doesn't make sense to approach that by deliberately playing moves in the opening that aren't the strongest. For one thing, sooner or later, you will find that you need to play strong openings. And when the time comes, it is terribly difficult to make the change. These openings are not just the best, they are also the richest (in the end that's why they are the best) and hence the hardest to play well. If you don't make a start, it never gets any easier.

Look at the world champions: all of them (except perhaps Lasker and Petrosian) have played the main lines of their time. Mickey Adams has been quoted as saying that he feels the thing really holds him back is that he didn't play the main lines as White (particularly the Open Sicilian) early enough in his career. You may say there are counter-examples, such as Morozevich or Hodgson perhaps. However, I would say that these players have achieved what they have despite their devotion to the bizarre, not because of it. Morozevich is widely regarded as the strongest of all top players in the middle game: if he'd had equality out of the openings in San Luis and then played the way he did after that he probably be world champion now. And as a junior Hodgson had a fabulous talent (easily the equivalent of Short's): he may have reached number 100 or so in the world and he may have inspired the devotion of Tromp fans everywhere, but if he'd played 2 c4 his whole career I reckon he would have got higher. Nigel Short himself, who also had a notoriously ramshackle opening repitoire when young, was let down when he challenged Kasparov by his lack of mastery of the real main lines as much as anything.

. . .

If you're playing a main line and your opponent plays a move you have not seen before, that's fine. It'll happen half the time; there are many reasonable non-critical moves Black can play which aren't in this book; that's why it's 200 pages and not 10,000. You know you start from a good position: there are probably many more moves White can play which maintain a reasonable position and enable you to keep on with the plans you are used to. If the position is very tactical then if you know the normal move for your opponent and he plays something else one of two things have happened: either your opponent has produced a devastating novelty which has escaped the notice of Kasparov et al, or there is a good reply to his move and you have to find it. If you don't know the normal move then there still has to be a reasonable reply: dig in and find it. These are the moments that make good players, and you can't run away from them." - John Cox.

Although he was defending his choice for choosing only the absolute main lines in his book, we can take the basic ideas he touched upon and apply it to this situation. Your shortcuts might possibly be valid openings, but I doubt all of them are the strongest; otherwise people would play them more. Playing such openings may also eventually hurt your game.  I know I am a little bit of a hypocrite for saying this since I play the Ponziani as white, but I am trying to switch to the Ruy Lopez with time.

I'm sorry, but to truly advance in chess, you have to learn the theory and the ideas associated.  There are no shortcuts to getting better at chess.  Even though I am a tactical player, I am playing positional openings.  I am having some poor results, but my chess knowledge is ever expanding.

I totally agree with KillaBeez and Feldmm1.

The joy of catching someone out with a line in the latvian gambit might be fun but eventually you need to play at least some main line openings.

The fact of the matter is, the better opponents you face the more solid your opening play (and middlegame and endgame) must be.

Ok, for people who are just social players and cant dedicate much time to playing chess it is understandable that they learn 'shortcut' openings to play online or at their local club. I mean, thats why the colle is nicknamed the 'businessmans opening'.

For those who are competitive players, i think shortcut openings (if you want to call them that) are good in the short run but in the long run will just cause you problems. Think about it. You play a tournament, catch everyone out with your opening and win every game. Next week you play the same guys, same openings, you only win half. What happened? They searched you on database, done some homework and beat you. The next tournament you lose everygame. What the heck happened? Everyone you played searched your games seen how limited you were and picked out your weaknesses. You now need to learn a new opening. Who wants to have to do that every couple of months! (ok this is exaggerated to the max but you get the idea).

If you learn main line openings and lets say you make a mistake and it costs you the game. Your opening repitoire is still sound. All you have to do for homework is continously improve your play in the main lines. You wont have to change your opening, a main line will be a main line forever (or for the forseeable future).

If you like the game of chess enough its not so painful to learn the main lines. After all, once you learn them you know them (ie.understand them) forever unless you just try 'remember' them. In that case you wont know them the after a couple of days.

Always think about the long run if you are a serious player.

Hmmm... I better stop playing the bishop's opening...

thanks for the help, guys.

P.S. I had no intention of playing unsound openings, just lesser played ones.

sometimes it works, but the problem with less known openings is that they are less known because they're worse. If your opponent finds the right plan, he doesn't need to known theory to win, just take some time in the opening to see if there are some tricks and always follow his plan. If your oponent finds the right plan, you will probably loose. That's my opinion, and that's why i prefer to play a common opening and try to destroy my opponent in the middlegame.

That's a valid approach to chess openings.

However, these openings, and especially the 'little moves' (1.g3, 1.b3) may lead to rather complex midlegames.

I don't speak from a lot of experience, and am just starting to explore this idea.

What about some of the queen's pawn setup openings for white; colle-zukertort, barry attack, etc.?  Some of the ones found in "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire," Summerscale; and "Beating the Anti-King's Indians," Gallagher. (Haha, the title of the second book makes the counterpoint, i.e. ways to beat them.)  Maybe in parallel with learning some main line stuff. 

Any one of these openings is about 4 moves to set up so very easy to remember and gets you right in to tactics and attacking ideas.  I think these little setup QP openings also provide a relatively simple environment to learn about transpositions from one opening to another depending on what your opponent does.  Colle-z against a classical defense, barry (Or other suitable.  I'm not yet sure what else is available) against a King's Indian, for example.  The opening itself might be throw-away as you advance to solid club player but it only took 10 minutes to learn the actual opening, and you get to keep the experience in piece play, tactics, and attacking ideas that you learn.  It's also a break from the deeper theory of Sicilian, Queen's gambit, etc.

Susan Polgar did it, for example, playing around with the Colle-z in her earlier years. 

I agree with the main point that Feldmm1 has tried to present, that is, the best way to improve your understanding and your play in this game is to play the proven best ideas, and learn why they are best. It is in most of the main lines that all elements of deep chess understanding come together, and by playing them you will provide yourself the quickest road to chess understanding.

However, each opening system has a "main line" variation to be learned, and if our goal is to incorporate as many main lines as possible to spur our chess growth then we will be pouring through a pile of opening books for a very long time before we feel we are ready to apply all of that knowledge. It's not always practical to learn all of the main lines and play them immediately. I have two recommendations to consider:

Option 1) Maintain some side variations--lesser known openings-- as you aim to slowly study and add main lines to your repertoire. For example, you could continue playing the Vienna after 1.e4 e5 while you prepare a main line for the Open Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4). Focus on one main line at a time so you don't overwhelm yourself, and when you're through it move on to study a main line in an entirely new opening, to maintain a feeling of "freshness". So after you're done preparing a line for, say the Dragon Variation of the Open Sicilian, move to 1...e5 and prepare a Ruy Lopez, or a main line Italian Game or Scotch. After that, move to a main line Caro-Kann, French, etc. The key is to take it in stages, and to vary the openings so that you can feel a sense of progress being made.

Option 2) Memorize the first 5 moves of every main line you wish to play (for example, the Open Sicilian could be 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3, the key is to keep the move count low, so you don't have to worry about diving deep into theory), and then play through one or two top master games in each of those main lines. The point of the games is so you can get a quick glimpse of what a typical plan might be. Then, trot those games out over the board. Play your first 5 memorized moves and then play what comes to you at the board, keeping in mind the idea used in that game you looked at. This means you will form your own understanding of the position, you will think of some ideas, and this will give you your own experience to relate to when you study the game later (this kind of experience works as an invaluable memory aid! Much more useful than initially trying to memorize reams of moves from a book!). When the game is done, or the tournament is over, pick up a book and look through that specific variation you played. Now when you see what the correct idea is, you should have more of an understanding why that might be better than the move you used, and you'll remember it in the future much more easily! This second method I find most beneficial, as it fits in well with an all-around training/studying plan, and really helps you to learn about yourself as a player.