Question about...

Openings. I don't think I'm in the wrong forum, though. My question is this:

How do openings work?

I know, sounds pretty stupid but I've recently started getting serious about chess and I started looking at openings and trying them in games but people rarely adhere to the set moves in the opening. How do you compensate once they screw up the moves?

Have you tried out thematic tournaments - where the opening is usually made for you - so no-one can get it wrong?

I understand that it should be the strongest move (again, bear with me I'm a very weak player) but sometimes they'll attack a pawn that isn't supposed to by attacked according to the book opening or something along those lines. 

Hmmm? How do you do that?

Just search for them: PLAY -> Tournaments -> Upcoming Tournaments -> View all Upcoming Tournaments -> Show: Thematic.

Also, you can select the starting position for any game from a list of about 3,000.

Thanks!

Don't sweat it, as soon as you're GM strength you can start worrying about how to refute non-book moves.  At this level it's not important to follow all the books moves because your opponent (and you) can't punish them with 15, 25, 35 or more exact moves of perfect technique.

So stick to following the basic opening principals and most usually your position will be more comfortable when they're making poor moves.  If you can't win material, just keep developing your pieces and castle, after that you can look for how to punish your opponent.  You should get the idea out of your head that there will be a forced win if they don't follow book.

As mentioned, the book move- main line - is generally considered the best move in that line. If an opponent veers from the main line, it can mean several things - he wants to get out of book ;  he made an inferior move (possibly a blunder), so try to understand the move if you can ; or he's following a less familiar line because he likes it better or knows it better or whatever personal reason. Some people don't study openings and move by experience or inutition (which usually comes from and improves with experience) ; or he may be playing for a trap. Part of the fun of chess is trying to figure all this out.

Orangehonda gave some good advice.

What I was trying to get across is amateurs don't have the technique to punish all non-book moves.  To a GM, sure it may require only 3 moves, or one general idea (that may last through the endgame!) but to you and me even if we found those same 3 moves we're not going to know it's busted because our technique is too low to be sure we can follow through.  For us we'll have to find tons of accurate moves before the win comes into sight.

Unless of course there's a blatant tactical/strategic reason and we pick up some material or something similar :) then it's easy for us.  Otherwise I think the OP should try to follow basic opening principals like center control, king safety, etc.

I don't know, if an opening move is at all playable, the chances are that it is "book." It might just be a lesser-known, less popular line or something. If something on move 5 is not book at all then I tend to assume that it's probably pretty bad. However, in some cases it might just be a useless move and not always directly punishable.

Yeah, book is a rather broad term. I guess most people, when they refer to "book," mean either the main line, or even any line that at least gives equality.

Heh, and some book lines are known to be bad, and no one (at the top that is) would ever venture into them.

Yes, I mean, is 1.e4 e5 2.Ne2 book ? It's an opening that has a name and if you faced it in CC chess you could find some master games with it, so arguably it is "book." But it is not an opening that most people normally study so in an OTB or blitz game you could probably use it to "get out of the book."

You can study the openings trying to think what moves are more logical from a beginer's point of view, the moves you think your oponent will play.

Then you can search why such a logical move isn't played by grandmasters and perharps you will find a trap or at least a position that is strategicaly better (e.g. better pawn structure).

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the input greatly! My questions have been answered!

Not so fast, these questions are not so easy to answer.

Maybe for you lol. That was sufficient answering for me.