"Systems"?

I am fairly new at chess and tend to become a student of what i get involved in and have what might be a naive question. I'm reading about openings, strategy, endgames etc and would like to know at which point during the match does theory become obsolete? It strikes me that you could know every opening, yet because your opponent may surprise you with a move, you could end up with a combination that you have not seen (unless of course you are capable of memorizing every possible move which seems highly unlikely) and therefore, your "plan or system" has to be thrown out the window and your creativity and your ability to anticipate becomes more critical than any theoretical strategy that you have studied. 

Any comments would be appreciated.

In my (profoundly limited) view, Opening theory seems to be an ever growing body of knowledge, pushed by grandmasters, to find the strongest continuation in various lines. In theory, therefore, if a player deviates from opening theory, they are playing 'inferior' moves. The onus is therefore on you to PROVE that the moves are inferior. But bear in mind that grandmasters are aiming for perfection, playing with technique that is beyond a player like me. When I subject my games to computer analysis, they are bursting with errors, which would probably negate any advantage I had got from 'proper' openings. An example:

I have faced this opening on numerous occasions. The reply 2...Qf6 is not in the master opening database, and you can see why (early Queen development, blocking in the Knight, behind in development etc). It is 'Bad'. Yet, I have always struggled against it - during a game from this, the middlegame turns in to a typical battle that negates the opening, but only because I play innacurately.

Chess is hard my friend.

ED.  

The nasty thing about grandmasters is they study the wrong moves too   What I mean is, they know why the plausible deviations on move 7 don't work.  They know the why behind all moves in general.  In case of facing one of the implausible deviations they simply continue the general idea of the opening for a great game.  If the deviations are just downright bad, then they roll you up in under 20 moves :)

What you're thinking of though is very real, these moves are called opening novelties, and they're the very reason opening theory is so dense and changes.  During study grandmasters are always on the look out for strong deviations to known opening lines, if they can pull one out that their opponent isn't familiar with it can be a great advantage.  If the move hasn't been played before at all it's an opening novelty.

Some novelties don't work out, and after a few test runs in real games if they score badly players abandon them.  Years later a strong player may pick it back up and prove it playable or even strong and we have a revival.  If you spend your chess career championing a line and giving rise to it's popularity/proving it's soundness, you'll get the opening variation named after you.

Back to your original question, this is mostly why it's always taught not to simply memorize moves.  Not only is it harder, but it's less useful, because when someone doesn't play how "they're supposed to" someone who has only memorized will get confused like you suggested. 

That's why players are instructed to understand the ideas behind the moves.  Of course a GM understands the ideas in my favorite opening better than I do, as I understand them better than a beginner, so at first not too much understanding is needed (or even possible) and needed even less is memorization.  I wrote a rather long post outlining opening principals in response to someone (linked here).  In the very beginning this is all you really need, the principals.

Hey Errantdeeds, I've faced that one online a number of times too.  If white just knows 2 more moves from that position he has it easy.  Play 4.d4 and then even if black captures your next move is 5.Bg5 to develop with tempo on the queen if he did capture your pawn only now will you get it back with Qxd4 and look, you have a 4 to 1 lead in development and are all set to 0-0-0

Maybe you know that already, but this opening really bugged me too until I finally looked it up... not that I never lost it again, but it was definitely much more comfortable.

orangehonda is bang-on here. I think that it's important to keep in mind that there isn't necessarily a complete refutation of an inferior move, no definite winning sequence after a mistake like 2. ..Qf6. But think of it as giving you a clear advantage after four or five moves. If you were playing poker instead of chess against the guy, it would be like having won two or three good pots and getting yourself ahead in chips - but not having taken all his money yet. Or tennis, and you've won the first set, or football and you're 1-0 up after a few minutes. 

I am a fairly low level player, but I will pass along the advice that I have received, and that has been helpful.

Although some opening theory is useful for low level players, tactics, endgames, and a basic understanding of positional strengths and weaknessess will do much more for you.  I am not saying you shouldn't study opening theory, but dont give it a larger place in your study time than it deserves.

When you do study openings, dont just commit moves to memory, you have to try to understand what is going on.  Alwas look at basic opeing principles, such as control the center, develop rapidly, king safty, etc.  In low level games very often your opponent will deviate from theory early, and you need to be able to continue with sound and logcial moves "off book".  If you can look at a move thats not in the book and say, "well, thats bad becuase it doesn't focus on the center, or I can move here with a gain in tempo, etc" you can gain some actual advantage from it. 

Also, keep in mind that the advantage that one side or the other has in a grandmaster game going into the middle game is often very slight.  Dont buy into the idea that a particular opening wins by force.  Success in the opening is good position to begin middle game play, not a forced win or a quick checkmate (unless your opponent has really screwed up).

Well said.  I love it when a player comes to terms with the fact that the opening is not a silver bullet unless and until the rest of your game is Expert-level good.  

Almost analogous to a AA member admitting that there is a higher power. *grin.

Thank you for your posts. I think i'm moving on to poker, i'm better at bluffing. . Seriously though, i am a student of finance and i find chess to be a phenomenal challenge. I enjoy it and find it quite intriguing, yet I feel that because i started so late, i will never be able to "master" the art of truly understanding all the theory behind it or at least enough of it to make me a half decent player. If you are telling me that creativity doesn't play as much a role as having seen half the moves, then i'll never catch up. I'm not sure i'm crazy about that because I like to think that my intuition, creativity and vision have a place to compete with someone who is about memorizing the moves. 

Nobody ever said there was no creativity, vision and intuition in chess.   We've got 400+ years of documented masterpieces to argue with.   People who memorize moves seldom go far so I wouldn't worry about facing them, period. Bluffing and psychological warfare EXISTS ... both at the Master level and even more so at the club-level. 

Though I'd mention that one has to crawl before one walks.  You can't suddenly jump from "not understanding" to "understanding it all".  Nor can you expect your creativity and art-like vision to transfer to the canvas if you can't hold a brush right...or use the right brush, for that matter.

In your case, I'd just say you shouldn't treat this game as a massive uphill climb where you HAVE to reach some summit of competence before you deem yourself worthy of playing.    Explore it, enjoy it and take from it what you like and if you can't understand something, try not to "force" things .... chances are, you merely need to ramp up to figuring stuff out with practice/experience.

Consult with a stronger player and find out what ails your game, he'll set you on the right course for improvement.  Once you get comfortable,  your creative juices will find no better outlet than this wonderful game.

I'm with Shivsky. Saying that there is little creativity in chess because you have to know the technique is like saying there is no creativity in piano playing because you have to learn to read music.

Yeah, I agree.  I once played a natural talent who didn't play the "right" moves all the time, but he was very thoughtful about his moves and he let his ideas shine though.  If he had an idea he thought it out and made it work.  These types of players with understanding or purpose behind their moves will always be stronger than the equivalent player who simply has memorized things.  The guy I played was probably a stronger player than I am now.

I also agree with Shivsky's art analogy, good post.

Not necessarily "my" analogy, borrowing off a "I am an artist on a canvas" comment in a Kramnik interview not so long ago *grin.

fascinating...i think creativity is the basis of all real successes...and the scarcest resource...and unclear if it can be taught...

Great post by baronspam (#6).

I will only add that if you really learn to understand the typical ideas and plans of particular opening variation instead of just memorising moves this knowledge is also going to help you when your opponent plays a move you haven't seen before. Altough the position after this is a new one to you it's still very close to others you know and this will help you to look in the right direction, to look for the ideas typical for these kind of positions.