The importance of getting players out of preparation

I feel it is really important to confuse your opponent in the opening.  Instead of playing book lines and typical moves, you can play slightly inferior moves on purpose to put you at a psychological edge.  

Chess at the highest level demands preparation, but for most chess players, this recommendation is a good one.  

What is your opinion of this?

I half way agree. The best move is always the best. So psychologically speaking pure domination is the best intimidation.

Lets see a opening that no one can prepare for and has 'slightly inferior moves''

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=949150227

Unless youre a titled player, trying to get players "out of book" is rediculous.   

At your level, you should not bother at all about the opponents "preparation". In reality one should not fear his opponent's preparation at any level.

One thing you should really do is putting nonfictitious data at your profile, else noone will be able to estimate which terms he should use when replying to you.

Fischer advocated the complete opposite, "All that matters on the chessboard is good moves".

Fischer is one of kings of psych warfare. He may have preached that quote but he did not practice it

Charetter115 wrote:

stuzzicadenti wrote:

Also, I think it was Lasker who advocated the approach of "play the man, not the board". Psychology, nerves, emotions, and fatigue are factors that can affect the outcome of games when humans play chess against other humans. This is what highlights chess not only as a form of art and science but also as a sport, where athletes often exploit every little detail, even those unrelated to the sport/game, to strengthen their performance and gain a psychological advantage over their opponents.

Fischer advocated the complete opposite, "All that matters on the chessboard is good moves".

I play both the board and the person. If I know someone in person and they are an opponent that I see regularly, then I learn their openings and pet variations. I know what to avoid and what positions to strive for - positions that they are bad at and positions that I am good at.

"Attack what is weak and avoid what is strong"

Sun Tsu - Art of War

I don't think it's important to get players out of prep. It's important to calculate well, evaluate positions correctly, and reach a playable endgame. A lot of players have deep prepration branching very broadly, but you can out play them in the endgame. It's amazing how even higher rated players miss tactics and bungle up text book endings ... never mind the middle game.

People focus too much on openings and complain that people focus too much on openings. It's hypocritical. It's important to know your opening and impossible to study any opening without studying the resulting middle games. No body here can show me one single book on an opening that doesn't cover the resulting middle games extensively. Trying to evade someone's opening prep requires studying openings.

I prefer to evade sterile positions.

The only universal approach to winning is diligence. Make sure you're not evading prep just for the sake of laziness.

I like Mato Jelic's opinion on this topic:

"When you play the most popular move, your opponent is, most of the time, ready to meet that move or that variation...

...choosing a move that is not the most popular or most played, may be a very good idea because you may catch your opponent by surprise."

I know it seems obvious, but I like the way he worded it. He described opening surprises as another tool in the chess player's tool box rather than something that you must do or something you should never do. In addition, his points are so basic that you can't really argue with them.

I want to add though that you don't have to play awful moves or completely strange moves to catch your opponent off guard. When people think of "catching your opponent off guard" they often think of 1: g3 or 1: Na3 or similar stuff. But the game mato commented on when he said that quote went like this:

The surprise didn't have to be something incredibly wierd or hypermodern, he just played the simply 6: f6 instead of 6: Be3 and it was enough to change the game very much.

I think many players overemphasize to how unpopular their moves should be to be surprising. The move doesn't have to be 1: Na3 to be surprising or 1: e4 e5 2: h4. I also think that while playing "silly" lines such as that show a patzer just trying to throw his opponent off guard because that's the only trick he knows, the more subtle lines found by the players themselves show chess players who understand chess and the positions they are modifying much better.

Does anyone here think that you're going to get better by memorizing Fritz and then playing bullet?

If you're going to be a GM, then prove it in standard, not in a 1 minute game using 1. Nf3 g5? just because you can.

The problem is that against an equal player, the better opening crushes.

Carlsen is 2880, my coach (Fritz) is 3300.  I'm learning middlegames from Fritz and distilling its knowledge into new theory that is about 250 points stronger than any human player on earth.

Right now I'm giving away pieces and crushing 1800s.  I'll be GM in three years at this pace.

I think every player should ditch their repertoire just to see what it's like to play without one, but longterm a diet of garbage openings will be bad.  I'm doing it now as a middlegame training exercise which is different.

Recipe for mediocrity: 

Play chess engine

Play whatever it tells you to play, even though you wont understand why youre playing the moves

Play bullet

Post your "victories"

Wait for the grand kids to visit so you can regale them with tales of bullet chess victories

There are no equal players. There is so much to chess that this is so. You can study endgames and middlegames all you want, but you still have to play the opening to get there.

Every player should have an opening repertoire.

Also, you can't study the middle game and improve without knowing which opening to play to get the desired middle game.

Examples: play the French if you want pawn chains, Queen's Indian or Tartakower QGD for hanging pawns, Tarrasch QGD or French for an Isolated Qp, etc.. Studying middlegames leads you into the opening just like studying the opening leads you to certain types of middle games.

Also all those "garbage" opening are difficult to cope with when you don't know what to do and your opponent is armed with computer analysis to back them up. I suggest playing both sides of every opening - in practice; not competition.