The top players know all the openings and the meta is more like " i want a draw here go for boring symetrical line and trade stuff" vs "I need a win here play a line where someone normally wins" as well as "my opponents database says he plays this I'm gonna trap him here" etc They often play intentionally suboptimal moves knowing their opponent knows the whole main line. Also style is a factor some people play aggressive some take the center some like to fianchetto the bishops and sit back. So no there not one meta opening the meta is knowing all the opening and trying to guide your opponent into a place they don't know something you do.
Is there a so-called "meta" Chess opening?
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@1
Most played at top level are Ruy Lopez and Queen's Gambit.
cokezerochess22 wrote:
The top players know all the openings and the meta is more like " i want a draw here go for boring symetrical line and trade stuff" vs "I need a win here play a line where someone normally wins" as well as "my opponents database says he plays this I'm gonna trap him here" etc They often play intentionally suboptimal moves knowing their opponent knows the whole main line. Also style is a factor some people play aggressive some take the center some like to fianchetto the bishops and sit back. So no there not one meta opening the meta is knowing all the opening and trying to guide your opponent into a place they don't know something you do.
Through this reply, I now somehow understand how novelties in old opening theories emerge among top-level plays.
Oct 28, 2022
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#5
Sure, there's a meta for top level play, and top players set opening trends, but the openings aren't necessarily good for new players. Sometimes the openings aren't good for anyone but the best players heh.
For example the Ruy aka Spanish is good for most players, but the Berlin defense is probably simply bad for the majority of players.
The Grunfeld defense has been played by world champions, but it bad for pretty much anyone below the super elite level.
Also, as someone mentioned, top players often try to draw with black. Since the format of the tournaments they play in is round robin (and since everyone is very close in rating) winning 3 or 4 games out of 10 can be enough to win a whole tournament (they draw all the other games). But for most players this is a bad appraoch i.e. you shouldn't be doing your best to draw all your games with black.
Oct 28, 2022
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#6
And in that sense, what an earlier poster said is true. They'll play openings like the Petroff or Berlin to make the game a boring draw, which isn't a good appraoch for new players.
Or they try to make the position chaos for some small chance to win with black, which is also not a good approach for new players.
Of course not all games fall into one extreme or the other, but the openings that do aren't good to copy.
I've been observing OTB and online games of GM's for the past few months. In some games, I noticed that they're doing similar openings like Sicilian, Giuoco Piano, QG, Indian defenses, Catalan, etc. many times. I wonder if they are making a "meta" opening or an opening that is trending for the general public to start with when learning chess openings.