REAL opening advice from a 2000 (and why you shouldn’t play what you do).

Hey all. Seen a lot of vaguely useless and often insulting advice for players wanting to improve. It’s upsetting to see and, I imagine, demoralising for people who genuinely want to get better.

Instead, here’s some actually good advice, targeted specifically at the opening:

PLAY SIMPLE OPENINGS, with plans you understand.

Don’t worry so much about the engine evaluation (within reason, -0.8 - +0.8 is fine), and don’t try playing mainline GM theory in openings like the Italian or the Spanish; the reason why these openings are played at the highest level is (in order to win) they have to play complex positions for micro-advantages over the course of a long game with few if any blunders.

At every other level (including my own) these openings are not actually that beneficial. Players will make tactical or positional mistakes in ANY opening. So play something slightly offbeat with clear plans.

The benefits? Your opponent will not know it as well as the most common openings, so you’ll be the one playing in familiar territory. You understand the plans, so you’ll enter the middlegame with sensible ideas and stop playing so aimlessly (maybe it’s attacking a pawn, or the king, or playing a minority attack, or playing for a specific tactic, anything that you can actually understand). You can play openings that are tactically interesting, and memorise traps. And you’ll really annoy opponents expecting the same opening they play against every game, and immediately put them on the back foot.

Unless you’re a master, it doesn’t matter if your lines are technically possible for your opponent to “equalise” according to the engine. Normal players are not good enough for this to matter. 

(Apologies for clickbaiting a bit with the title and the rating inclusion, but I think this advice is genuinely good to get to people, and clickbait works better than serious topics)

If you need examples, do feel free to ask.

Good advice.

I agree that playing something that you understand is more important than trying to play "theory". These days, engines have shown that nearly anything can work (within reason), so the days of needing to play only dry book lines (if you want the best chances to win) seem to be behind us.

I personally like to play openings that are slightly less common, but still within the "valid" wheelhouse.

For sure - one of my most successful openings recently has been the ponziani, which is played <5% of the time after 1.e4 e5 2.nf3 nc6... my win rate is currently 53% // 6% // 41% which is really solid. And it's "-0.2" according to both lichess and chesscom. Big whoop! The way to "equalize" as black are largely very counterintuitive, and the plans for white largely simple and difficult to neutralize.

I play what I do because it "philosophically feels right". When I play, I don't have anything that higher-rated players would call a plan, in fact I have close to zero understanding of positional chess and hardly even calculate moves---if it looks right, it is right, until proven wrong. If my opening was evaluated as -1.00 after 10 moves, I'd still play it.

Yes I like curry

Playing on intuition and “vibes” isn’t terrible - chess is a game of pattern recognition after all - and you’re better off playing moves and plans that make sense to you than you are just memorising. HOWEVER - the longer the time control, the more calculation you will need to do to not lose. Playing pure instinct works great in bullet, and blitz to an extent, but at rapid it starts to be proven wrong a bit more, and at classical you’ll find you lose a lot to hard calculation.

The correct answer is, as always, some balance - find ideas and plans intuitively, but at least do some basic calculations (of forcing lines at the very least) and you’ll do better

Thanks for the kind words, help me bump it occasionally to let early intermediate players especially get the advice they need? Before 1100s start trying to learn ruy Lopez theory 😭

What's wrong with 1100s learning the Ruy Lopez?

By the way the Caro-Kann defense is a terrible opening for players at all levels except titled players.

Thanks a lot for the advice !

As a mostly Blitz player, I would hardly never play a true opening. I was just trying to respect the 3 principles and it would work, more or less. I never felt the need of learning that much after e4 c5, the only opening I remembered from my chess classes 4 years ago. However, I started to play more rapid and daily recently (yes Fet, I've come to the bright side lol), and I have quickly realized my lacking of theory, but mostly of understaning theory. As I said, in Blitz, I would just move my pieces mindlessly, w/o really understanding there game plan going with the opening, and this is reflecting a lot in my rapid games, as one of my weaknesses (with time management oc but this is going to come). So yeah I am trying to play more rapid even if I play less games, and If you have got some outside the box openings, like the ones umbravolt sent, and explaining their game plan, I would be truly thankfull for it.

And as other siad, finally some good advice on forums, from experienced players, but not too arrogant and trolly. I was kinda tired of HPC or other 1000 players telling me to do early queen attacks

Did you read the actual forum post at all? I explained (at least implied) why 1100s shouldn’t learn the ruy Lopez. Have a read, see if you agree

Umbravolt’s suggestions were based on ruy Lopez theory, which is the opposite of what I’m trying to suggest. I recommend playing something a little more off-beat with simpler plans. The ruy Lopez is great for masters, but it’s too based in microadvantage building to be practical for us amateurs. The ponziani, the scotch, these are more useful for us. Or if you must play the Italian or similar, try the Evan’s gambit when you can or smth like this. Sidelines and gambits are amazing for non-masters, never let anyone tell you otherwise. Have a google or watch YouTube, or just look on the lichess players database for rare but sound openings and dig into them. You’ll develop an individual style and see more victories!

Oopsie my bad

Thx a lot.

I rly like curry 😀

You’re welcome! Best of luck in your chess endeavours. If you find something that you want to explore a bit more, drop me a message and I’ll see if I can help

I didn't even know this was the ruy lopez... This goes to demonstrate my openings knowledge 😬