Instructive Miniature

More trap than opening principles IMHO... c3 allowing for Qb3 attacking f2 and b2 is classic stuff and it can be double edged, too... before gobbling the b2 pawn one has to make sure the Queen can get back out!

I agree.  But it wasn't a trap.  He made opening moves which didn't develop, which led to his poor position.  I didn't make any "Wow" sacrifice or set up some elaborate trap.  So I would disagree with you about it "NOT" being instructive in opening principles. 

Can we settle on trap-like?

I realize this is my problem, not yours, but FYI, "opening principles" are a pet-peeve of mine... IMHO opening principles are just the pixie-dust GMs sprinkle around when they don't feel like answering any more questions... there isn't a single "opening principle" that doens't get violated in some well used line or another. One of the most dangerous weapons Black has and so naturally one of the most common openings in tournament play today is the Najdorf Sicillian... it's a dreadful opening if principles were the test.  I think your opponent's failure in the miniature is a failure to calculate and a failure to consider his opponent's best moves before settling on his own. Indeed principles were probably his downfall -- He thought his Bishop move was "developing" -- unfortunately he "developed" away from the weak b2 square he needed to defend!)

Here's a tongue in cheek dramatization of the Najdorf Sicilian -- don't take my anti-opening principle thing personally, I know i'm in the minority on this. As a tactical player, I hope you will enjoy the Hiarcs v Rybka finish here.

Hilarious post! But in my opinion it makes sense for beginners to have as much clarity as possible in their education. Moves like a6 in the Najdorf I think contain logic that are likely beyond their current level of understanding. If any beginners were to attempt that sort of play it would only end up as useless wood-pushing. If they are more serious about improvement than the old "stuck in his ways" guy they would/should learn in time about sparingly using those principles which they've been taught and that although they can be used in other openings they are mostly "stuck to" reasonably rigidly in the "open game" with 1.e4 e5..

Btw, have you seen the only serious game that Garry Kasparov has lost in the French? Ivanchuk only castled on about move 40 which forced GKs immediate resignation! 

Yes nuclearturkey I think you hit the nail on the head.  Obviously opening theory can have nuance moves which seem to defy opening principles, but of course do not.  By move 17 in this game the development is relatively equal. 

It is very important for players who will become future Kasparov's or Ivanchuks to learn opening principles so moves like a3 can be understood.

BTW I enjoyed that game Rybka played.

'rybka is scary". nice xD

immortalgamer your move doesn't earn a ?! it earns a !?. I don't see any way to immediately refute it - so it's at least creative (definition of !?).

nice game! (reminds me of morphy's famous duke count something game.

Immortal, I strenuously object to your views, but to explain myself requires lots and lots and lots of words because I'm under no illusions: "opening principles" are firmly entrenched in our chess culture. Is this a topic you want to discuss (with me)?

My thesis is: Opening principles are NOT helpful to beginners; they actually get in the way of beginners learning to play better chess. I suppose that sounds like heresy, but I can make a strong case for it if you like.

Let's just say it is better to blindly follow principles than to do whatever you want when you don't know what you're doing. You can't make it to the higher levels following the principles strictly. But they're "when in doubt" moves which may not be spectacular, but they're probably decent. As you become better, you naturally stop following the rules strictly but if a beginner had absolutely no principles they would not make it far. When the beginner becomes better at tactis and the basic endgames he eventually learns planning, but until they learn that stuff they have to make do with winning in simple tactical ways because strategy takes awhile to understand. But sure weak players can get away with sticking to the reliable if not always correct moves the principles tell them to. Breaking the rules comes much after. The beginner at least needs something to grasp onto and hey, the principles are more often than not correct!

True, as I rarely think about principles anymore either, but for a beginner those advanced concepts are not important and since they take so little time to learn it's a good temporary solution. I don't think a beginner would get to the top as well without using principles in his games but it has never really been tried. What beginner wasn't taught the basic principles yet can't move on? But I don't think it hinders them since at their level they don't need to spot creative strategies until they understand the game more.

I would like to discuss it. It's an interesting topic..

So if you never taught a beginner principles, what would they do before they learn chess strategy (which can take while)? It helps them patch up that weakness until they know better. If they had no guidelines, they might not even play 1 e4. (and if someone told them to play c4, this would be bad because the principles don't work nearly as well but at the same time c4 is hard for them to understand even as just a first move. At least e4 is strong and correlates with the principles better.) We notice that most beginners start with this move, which is a great one, even though it doesn't make them a great player at all. But at least they're off to a good start. You can't expect beginners to understand every situation so early on which is why there are principles. I used them as a beginner of course and it didn't hinder my growth. You naturally learn to think for yourself as you learn about planning and eventually they will go away, but if you never had them in the first place, your rating would probably not even be good enough to try to learn planning yet. At least beginners can master the principles which gets them to a certain strength.

I'm dying to get back to this topic but am busy today, will post t'nite or tomorrow morning.

Of course opening principles are important, Elubas has touched on why. Develop all your pieces... yes, good. Get your king to safety... makes sense. Occupy the centre with pawns... right. These things are all extremely handy to start off with. Otherwise we have novices playing 1.Na3, moving the same piece around multiple times, making pointless pawn moves, leaving the king where it is, all because they have no direction at all.

Really it's as simple as "walk before you run", which applies to lots of challenging games/sports.

About the najdorf... well actually even the first move 1...c5 takes awhile to actually understand, why isn't ...e5 instead played. But what I think happens is someone tells the beginner to play this move and shows them the main line, says that black's center pawns block early kingside activity (at least if black is careful!) and then says: you attack on the queenside and your opponent attacks on the kingside. They probably do play ...a6 blindly, but I think they can understand that they play ...b5 to attack the queenside and hopefully all they have to do after that is to try to attack. that's the najdorf at a low level, and they can get away with that because that's all his opponent knows as white. Still, I think it's much easier for low rated players to play it as white because they have good development and are usually attacking a king while in the sicilian sometimes there is no king if white goes kingside and queenside pressure is more subtle and much harder to pull off for them...

This is why 1...e5 is the better move for beginners! If they play that move, well the principles are much, much more likely to be correct for either side.

The idea of principles appears to be analogous to the teaching of science in schools... (U.K. schools, at least.) In primary school, you are taught a certain way, but then in secondary school, you are told that some of what you learnt was actually wrong, but a simpler way to express the ideas to you. Move on to A-level, and they start telling you everything you learnt about electricity was a lie to make it easier... and it goes on.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm in the "principles" stage myself.

They're not set in stone no, but they are necessary for development I think in the early stages. What Nytik mentioned is very similar to how it is with chess principles. They're correct to an extent and are good for simple explanations but they don't cover the whole picture.

The thing with principles.  They are good if you understand they are principles and not laws.  They are flexible. 

If there are not concrete reasons which deem the general principles null then the general principles should dominate.  So the question follows-how much is concretely thought out when a  beginner is playing?  As you accumulate more and more knowledge everything becomes more concrete.  But, at the beginner level almost everything is a mystery and anything but concrete. 

Ok, here's my Down with Opening Principles Post (That's right, down with O.P.P. ! And please note the obvious Soviet chess spy in the CCCP jacket down in front. )        

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Opening Principles encourage bad chess.

First let's formulate the opening principles in broad terms -- there really are only two big "principles"

Every beginner hears something like this:

1. You need to DEVELOP your pieces... develop develop develop -- "Here look at these Morphy games, Morhpy develops and these idiots he plays don't and they get whacked! Be like Morphy -- develop!"  (This big principle then gets broken down into lots of little handy sub rules... develop Ns before Bs, don't move the same piece twice, don't make too many pawn moves, etc.)

2. All your moves must have the center as their object. The center is crucial, the center is everything -- moves to the center = good, moves that don't influence the center = bad.

Ok. So what's wrong with this? Isn't this good advice?  "Beginner's must walk before they run..." how can this basic sound advice do any harm? Eventually beginners will outgrow these simplistic rules and until then they help, right?

I honestly disagree. Opening principles are so incomplete as guidelines, and so often contradicted by more important factors, that they cause more confusion than they solve. Perhaps they sometimes help beginners take their first steps... even so, they slow down the beginner's ability to take good second steps! They slow down progress. I don't know if the opening principles need to be shovelled into the furnace -- but they surely need an overhaul.

The first problem with the principles as I've phrased them (and it's how they are typically presented and understood) is:

-- They are focused exclusively on your pieces and your moves (and that undermines correct chess thinking). Both statements encourage beginners to think of good moves as things you do with just your pieces! Stare at your pieces, think of where you want your pieces to be! Fixate on your chessmen and your moves! Never mind the other guy...

And that is exactly what beginners do.

They move their pieces as though the other guy doesn't get to move. They hang pieces because a square looks appealling, never mind that it's guarded. They attack pieces that just move away to better squares. Beginners have a damned hard time thinking thru the other guy's moves... and the principles say, that's fine, you can find good moves without reference to the other player. Make principled moves and you'll be ok.  It encourages bad chess.

In my honest opinion, any chess advice that doesn't refer to the opponent's pieces is pretty much worthless (yes, there's a lot of worthless chess advice out there). This is more true for beginners than anyone else. (Experienced players already know better, hopefully.) Beginners need to learn to focus on the interaction of the pieces ... The interaction (coordination) of their own pieces, and above all interaction of their pieces and goals with those of the enemy.Opening principles have the beginner looking at chess wrong, from move 1~!

Opening principles seem to suggest that calculating variations, formulating a plan to attack the enemy, foreseeing the enemy's moves and causing them problems... all these thing will take care of themselves without a lot of unpleasant thinking, if just follow the bland recipe. It's nonsense of course.

I could flesh this argument out -- there are a lot of subsidiary points. I have some very concrete ideas about what how and what beginners should be taught (to reach my level of stinking low-mediocrity in less than the 40 years it took me!) I think there are real principles of chess that can benefit a beginner ... but that'll be part II of my rant. 

For the moment, let me annotate another opening and show you, again, principles failing or being contradicted.

Earlier I presented a najdorf sicillian -- that opening has an air of "ultra-advanced" chess to it... let's look at something much more basic.

The Italian game...

The principles are as accurate as they're going to get; as everyone said they are usually right in some way but chess is not a game where you just follow rules. Beginners will be wrong sometimes when they use the principles but they need to follow them more early on because that's all they have for strategy. Imagine if you told a beginner that they didn't need to follow any principles, "don't care about development", just have a plan in mind.

What I think would happen is the beginner makes too many aimless pawn moves (telling them not to worry about development is not going to make them understand the pawn moves of the sicilian right away), and the other beginner will in fact follow the principles and win with tactics (probably some atack on the e file) I think it's much better to be resistant to these kinds of common tactical attacks (when the other side is better developed) than the other way around. The way you're proposing would probably get slaugthered alot more than it actually wins for them. Tactics are the big part of the game, and it's simply best to understand the principles first because they are more often correct and an easier way to play before you know to break them.

However some beginners state them as if they are rules set in stone, but it's usually ok for them to do so until they want to get better. I guess the point is that principles are more often correct and are simply easier to understand, and are the best way to learn tactics (say an attack because you're better developed by following the principles), while the other way is how you learn about pawn breaks and such, but you wouldn't learn the importance of development (which, though easier to grasp, is a nice portion of the strategy), tactics, and it would still take awhile to understand why the pawn moves are played. And the kicker is that even if they understood these, they could still get destroyed by a strong tactical attack. As long as you learn that the rules are meant to be broken, I don't see howthese guidelines hurt MORE than they help, especially when comapred to the other way. The other way would cause much more confusion.

And you mock people who talk about principles in your examples, assuming they are EXTREMELY strict with them. Not even beginners follow the rules that faithfully.