Why MEMORIZING Openings is BAD!

So I am playing in a 5 round weekend event, and round 1 was tonight. I won fairly easily. Why? Because of the UNDERSTANDING, NOT MEMORIZING of a completely different opening. Same ideas crop up in other openings.

This game starts out a Trompowsky, directly Transposes to a Torre Attack, and yet, plays like a French!

The opening may have been a Torre, but the game played itself like a French, illustrating the importance of understanding openings rather than memorizing them. Understanding the ideas of the French lead to a win in the Torre Attack!

Rote memorization without understanding the "why" is useless.

Cool game though

Yes, what's surprising about that?

The point is, if White, which was me, only memorized openings, the correlation between ideas for White in the French and this game, which was a Torre Attack, would never have been understood. You'd think ...c4 was fine when it really wasn't. You'd think all was fine and not realize your significant positional advantages. The point is realizing similarities in pawn structure, yet also finding the minute differences that make a significant difference in the position, like White's pawn on a2 instead of a3 making castling queenside a bad idea for Black, so he had to go kingside where White has a local piece superiority, and that wins him the game. Almost every idea White had after the e4 push were akin to that of the White side of the French Defense.

So why are you shocked Black lost? He played a terrible move in the opening, and his subsequent play was just as bad, ramming pawns when he needs to be developing his pieces, and so pieces like the a8-rook, b7-bishop, and c7-Queen, contribute ZERO to the defense of Black's king and Black drops 2 pawns followed by the game.

Cool, I dont know any opening

Wrote the same thing in my blog...

Obviously it's important to understand things you memorize. Although it's also very hard to memorize things without understanding them. To manage to learn the french without acquiring some understanding of the ideas would be very hard, you'd probably have to deliberately try to do that. And besides... when you memorize even smaller combinations you acquire them as patterns and they recur.
Your example doesn't really illustrate your point, since as a french player you had the french very well memorized, and as a result were able to recognize the pawn structure and how to proceed. If you had never memorized the french you would not have recognized it, so...

After 2.d5 if 3.Bxf6 it's basically the Trompowsky Attack. Nd2 is also a decent move, other than Nf3.

Just to add an important note:

...c4! would lead to a nice advantage for Black, if black's move had been 7 ...Qb6 (let's say, instead of 7...h6) here, and White responded to it with 8 Qb3 question mark.

Since after Qxb6 axb6, the b-pawn push to b4 would be unstoppable due to the tempo on the d3 bishop, and then to the a-file pin, which leaves White no chance to move the rook off the a-line and play a3, plus then black has a second b-pawn in reserve!

Gotta be able to understand first but then memorize in the end!

I think you need to a mixture of both to be successful imo

Not really. If you understand what you are doing, the moves will come naturally and there is no memorizing. Take the following line, which I have 4 active correspondence games on ICCF with this and multiple games over the board in the last 2 months:

Now the over the board games deviated before this point, one on move 11, the other on move 12. But there is no need to memorize. This can all be easily explained. If you can't explain it, you are lost the moment Black deviates. You start out by winning a piece for king safety. After 8...e5, your pawn is hanging, and taking gains a tempo, so 9.gxf7 is easy. What about move 10? Why not 10.Nfg3? The answer is the e3-square. Black will take the pawn next move and be threatening Rxg5, removing the guard. So you need something that guards the Bishop, but will also guard e3 from there. That is where Ndf3 and Qd2 come to play, and it also opens up d1 for the king if need be. Why doesn't Black take the pawn on b2? Why Nc6? (By the way, e4, for the purpose of regaining the piece, is also possible, where then White should break up the marriage between the bishop and queen with 12.Be3 Bxe3 13.Qxe3 Qxe3+ 14.Kxe3 exf3 15.Nxf3 and White is slightly better or 13...Qxb2 14.Rd1 Be6 15.Nd4 with an advantage for White.) The reason is 11...Qxb2? Just goes hunting for material with a complete lack of piece coordination and no queenside development - after 12.Kxf2 Qxa1 13.Bf6 Rg6 14.Bxe5 Qxa2 15.Bxb8 Rxb8 16.Bd3 Rf6 17.Qe3+ Re6 18.Qf4 Ra8 19.Ne2, the imbalance is two knights for rook and 2 pawns, but you have to ignore the 1 point for Black, his position is a complete disaster with no piece coordination at all.

So now why 12.a4? What is the point? White wants to play Ra3 to both cover e3 and to get active via the third rank. Hence why Black initiates the trade down and the end position is theoretically equal. Both kings are loose.

Memorizing this line would be useless. You'd have no idea what to do after 11...e4, 11...Qxb2?, 12...a5? (13.Ra3!), etc. Black could also try to play something benign like ...Bd7 or ...Be6 somewhere in that sequence, you gotta know what to do.

You say a mix of memorizing and understanding - if you fully understand it, you are no longer memorizing. If you understand the first 11 moves, and then memorized moves 12 onward, what happens if Black deviates on move 12 or later. You play 12.a4 because the computer or book tells you to. Ok, Black plays 12...a5 or 12...e4 or 12...Qxb2 instead of 12...Bxg1. Now what? This is why even a mix is invalid. You need to understand it all!

Also, even the final position, don't just trust that it's equal. Figure out Why. Of course, 19...Rd8 allows you to trade twice with check, save the g-pawn, and you are likely ever so slightly better due to 1 less pawn island. 19...Qxb2?? loses a Rook after 20.Qe6+ Kf8 21.Qxf6+ followed by 22.Qxg5. Black would love to be able to play 19...Rc8, pressuring both pawns and if White advances either of them, the other is captured with check, but 20.Qxd7+ ruins Black's parade as the rook falls. So on and so forth.

I think you are trying to be contrairian ThrillerFan. How can you claim you don't have to memorize at all?

Fischer famously claimed chess is nearly all memorization. And Fischer was particularly vocal about pushing this idea - you're saying that it's a misconception that memorizing is important, while Fischer's claim was the exact opposite - that the public don't understand that it's mainly all memorization.

Kasparov when asked for what he would like the most to be a better chess player was a better memory.

Carlsen has been estimated to have around 10,000 games memorized by heart.

At the lower levels yes it's more about understanding, but the higher up you go the more memorization takes the lead. You can also forget your understanding.