Serious Chess Question #1: The Novelty

I'm sorry if this should be in Off-topic, but I have a serious chess question. 

Lets take a popular opening line like the Ruy Lopez. What is the earliest time a player in this opening can play a novelty? 

I understand that most of opening theory is already memorized, and Chess isn't actually a game of thinking but rather a game of memorization. I'm starting to think that everything, at least in the first 20 moves has been seen before in most popular openings.

Could you provide examples of early novelty opportunities for a player in some of the most popular openings?

Thank you. 

What's the earliest you can get a novelty in the Ruy Lopez. What move? 

Hmm that's pretty early actually. 

The point is that there are so many reasonable chess games possible, that you will very often be able to come up with an interesting, slightly inferior move that is still OK, and call it a novelty. And I'm talking about doing a3 or h3, which I wouldn't consider novelties. 

Now that I think about it I probably make novelties all the time by complete accident because I don't know opening theory! 

If they're OK moves, then yeah, you could call them novelties.

If they're mistakes/blunders, we don't need to change the name

I'm sure I've played it before. 

Go on @Urk , the floor is yours. By the way what does TN stand for? I'm guessing the N is for novelty but the T. 

I've compiled some words, tell me if I'm right

T: Traditional

T: Total

T: Tragic

T: Tremendous

T: The

That's the extent of my knowledge of the letter T. 

Perhaps, my novelty should be posted here as well. I'm sure pretty sure my A6 move with black is a novelty. Enjoy

Since, in general, no two games are the same, every single game contains a 'novelty'....

Finding new, playable, ideas in mainlines though is tough but not impossible per se. It will be a long time still before new ideas will have dried up.

Chess-players care so much about their results that they are reluctant to leave the beaten tracks.

I remember a GM a couple of decades ago who suddenly started playing 1.e4,e5 2.Nf3,Nc6 3.Be2!?

He, surprisingly, even had some very decent results with it.

P.s. the T in TN stands for theoretical of course.

Awesome, thanks for that, theoretical makes perfect sense. I do wish GM's were more experimental. Thanks for your input. 

@ Vladimir

read this:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/why-fischer-random-is-not-the-future-of-chess

That's a good article. I've always believed that there is 2 schools of thought when it comes to Chess.

1. The people who just want to eliminate preparation, and have players rely more on in game calculation and intuition.

2. The people who see preparation as an essential part into seeing how far humans can take the game.

I think the author is right. The fact that computers can outplay humans in chess doesn't make any less of a desirable game to play. Also, I think the actual rarity of finding novelties has its own charm for sure. I think if you can prepare such a novelty as a part of your preparation, and it leads to win, the chess world benefits. Chess is an intellectual game, reliant on preparation and post game analysis. Therefore, consistency is important. Randomized variant games might have a more exciting sporting charm, but they would definitely not have the same intellectual or philosophical charm. 

I remember some friend of mine introducing a really interestig novelty to the ruy lopez Cozio defense, as early as in move 4 :

He was not successful at first, but I think it may be worth exploring.

Note that the purpose of the opening is not necessarily to win the game, it's to get to a playable middle game and a lot of non-book moves will get you there.

If you're thinking about non-book moves, you should first be thinking about the ideas behind the opening: the non-book moves must not conflict with an opening's goals.  For example, in the Bishop's Opening or Vienna Game, one idea is to launch a delayed King's-Gambit-like attack with f4.  That's "book."  However, you may note that White exclusively castles K-side according to book.  Why wouldn't you want to castle Q-side, O-O-O to back up the attack with the f-pawn?  You can throw the g and h pawns behind it as well as move rooks to the K-side!  In the '90's, I had about 20 OTB-rated high school kids looking at what moves by Black facilitated such and attack - mostly non-aggressive, defensive opening moves - and they couldn't wait to spring it on opponents in our next match/tournament.

With White, you can insert a novelty at virtually any time because you have the first move.  As for the Ruy Lopez, you could substitute 1 Nf3 and make it a Reti, or 2 Nc3 and make it a Vienna, or 3 Bc4 and make it a Giuocco Piano, etc.  As long as you don't have to respond to a threat, you could play h4 and g3 early, fianchetto your Bishop, and by not playing the "accepted" best moves, take your opponent out of the book.   But, as I said, you should have some plan of what you hope to do once you're developed!