I made it to USCF A player without studying openings.
strength attainable without theory
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I do know a couple of guys who became IM without any serious openings knowledge.
Ask Carlsen and Jobava, who have crossed 2800 and 2700 respectively while using subpar openings.
Good question. I wonder what the average persons peak would be without any studying. For me its around 1300 id guess. If I had to guess though i'd say the average person could reach 1800 without any studying, provided they played enough games.
MrKornKid wrote:
Good question. I wonder what the average persons peak would be without any studying. For me its around 1300 id guess. If I had to guess though i'd say the average person could reach 1800 without any studying, provided they played enough games.
Considering the opening is the easiest part of the game to learn, you can get quite good before havng to really study openings.
I think one needs to be very talented to do well in chess without learning any theory.
Maybe you need to study only a few opening theories, especially the ones related to the opening systems that you particularly use and like. Then have more studies that concerns middle game battles like tactics and strategies which concerns more of middle game principles and theories. In my opinion, this is a lot more important than opening theories because if you're superior in this area to your opponent, you could beat him most of the time even if he is superior to you in terms of knowledge in opening theories- personal opinion
I was wondering, how good can you become in chess without studying opening theories? Is there a limit or does it depend on the player (like morphy :P) ?