You don't need an opening reportoire until you hit 2000 ELO - ture or false ?

e4 e5 may make a larger difference than you think here. I have played plenty of games where I got trapped in the opening and lost a piece or got my king into a really horrible position, with checkmate threats all around me... simply because my opponent memorized a line that I didn't know. It's difficult for any level player to come back from such a thing.  Are you saying this cannot/does not happen at lower to intermediate levels?

False.

In order to break 2000 you need to study all aspects of the game, including the openings. Most players spend far too much time and energy on the openings, but anyone who plans to break 2000 needs a repertoire.

I still think this is a fairly silly debate since the true issue is not whether they matter, but what the best use of time is.  Openings clearly matter even at low ratings.  Even sub-1200 players can learn a little bit by studying basic openings and asking "why not this move" -- for example, "why cant I keep the pawn in the Queen's Gambit".  That doesnt mean that its a particularly good use of time for a sub-1200 player, or that they wont get more improvement per hour from studying tactics (they will), but to say that they wont benefit at all makes no sense.

As a player's strength increases, they get more out of studying openings, and at some point, some investment of time becomes a better use of time than other methods of improvement, such as additional study of tactics.  Exactly what rating level this happens at is probably the only legitimate point of debate here.

As long as an opening is reputed to be weak it can be played -- Savielly Tartakower

I take the opposite approach, if an opening is reputed to be weak why play it?  There are still acceptable openings that aren't "weak" per se that one can try.  Why even bother with the Latvian when 1...Nc6 gets into rare territory without weakening too much? 

FALSE - MYTH BUSTED !

Please read this to get your answer

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/improvement-in-chess-according-to-elo

If you lose a piece or get your king mated in the opening you dont have an opening problem, you have a basic tactic problem.

• bgianis wrote:

  Please read this to get your answer

Yep!, it is a good start and a lot it I agree. Most players will benefit from the their advice and increase in their rating.

When Jesse Kraai was a kid, he would play all comers in 5-1 blitz. He knew all the most popular openings at least ten moves deep, and often beat his opponents in the opening. 

Don't believe what these people say, believe what they do.

Pretty sure our own IM Pfren once wrote that you shouldn't study openings until 2200.  Of course most titled players advising you not to study openings do so from the hindsight of "I wasted a lot of time studying theory". Yet how do we know it was time wasted?  They're titled players.  Maybe it was knowing theory that really did give them the edge?

As others have said, typical plans and positions, and little tricks for developing your pieces are what needs to be learned, but of course you need to be able to bust out a credible main line at least 8 or 10 moves deep. Captain Obvious writes again!

if put handy instead of need, then it can profit all level player. for need even stockfish may say that it dont need it.

Don't follow what they say, follow what they do. 

I have found only a few games from Frendzas' juvenalia, but he showed a deep understanding of the openings he played. 

Here's one such game:

This is a good thread.  It's been a few months since the forums were blessed with this topic and I'd say the main positions are now being stated with a certain practiced elegance.  No one is going to convince anyone of differing opinion here, but we all dutifully write our lines.  

I think you may have missed my other post- I accidentally split my post over two pages. My point was that if you are going through an opening book, you'll encounter book evaluations like "this is a well-known trap, Black is lost" or "this is a sharp line but if White just trades queens, it's a draw"; my contention is that these evaluations are almost useless at the club level due to the lack of reliable middlegame technique. The reason I used that example game was to show that even though the "book evaluation" would be that White is better because he's a pawn up with better pawn structure, the book evaluation didn't really matter because I equalized easily as Black in another ten moves.

Your suggestion of picking one or two lines with White and Black and becoming comfortable with their ideas is a good one- I've been doing that since I was in the low 1400s and I highly recommend it. With the exception of my hiccup in the mentioned game, I am rarely outplayed in the opening because I don't just memorize theory and I focus on effective development. At my level that's almost always good enough.

I think the perspective this question is asked from and how it is considered applicable to players of different skill levels, is detrimental to the relevance of the answers.

For example, if an 1800 FIDE rated player, has never made it a point to learn more than the first 3-4 moves of the most popular openings and is handily winning most of his games against like competition, who is still rising in the ratings, etc, it is probably true that studying openings for him to get to 2000, isn't neceassary. However, I think it is fair to say that most chess players aren't future titled players either, while a player of that caliber is likely to be one.

Someone who has been playing chess for 10 years, who has only risen from the provisional rating to 1600, and has never studied openings in depth or never tried to understand the elegance and necessity of a dedicated repertoire, or better, "a system", will probably never reach 2000, unless they have a brain tumor, causing an unusual increase in spatial reasoning.

Long story short, it can be relative to whom the idea is juxtaposed with but, I would say for the most part, if you hope to be really good at chess, it is fool hearty to not try understanding the intricacy and pertinence of an "opening system".

Yes, kind of :)

I mean there's always a chance something crazy will happen, but the odds just don't favor it. A person may try memorizing "everything," but chess is a vast enough game that there will always be lines that you just don't get to. In addition to this, the kind of randomness that is in the games of class players (and expert level to a small extent), is high enough that even if you do get a bad position, it's so easy for this evaluation to change in just a few moves -- you just have to forget about one cheap tactic for one move -- happened all the time to me.

I mean sure, there could be some blatant traps where you just a lose a piece (I think this is quite uncommon though), and it just so happens to be very likely to occur in some opening -- you should know those. But pretty much anything else, worst case scenario (and worst case scenarios don't often happen), your position is bad and you're confused. But as I said, and as has happened in my experience, the amount of mistakes at pretty much any class level, especially below class A, are just too large to be able to predict the result out of the opening. I mean yeah I'll favor the guy with the better position to win, but not necessarily by that much.

Honestly if you want my advice, you may give up too easily. Instead of thinking about your rotten position, think about how eager your opponent wants an "easy win," and how frustrated he will be when you start forcing him to play accurately. When your opponent has to be precise, he can't go on autopilot, and if he feels he "should" win the game, he can easily get discouraged when his obvious threats keep getting met. He's going to miss moves; it's just a matter of you looking for those moments and catching him on it, rather than you collapsing.

I can remember a single time where I outright won a game out of the opening -- a totally legit win. And other "semi-traps" where I got a fairly large advantage or an extra pawn (although I didn't win all of those games!). But in the long run, it's not that helpful.

It's worth pointing out diminishing returns. For example, a person who does not know the opening principles will get squashed by someone who does -- clearly it's worth the time investment to learn them.

On the other hand, getting a slight advantage on move 15... even if it does occur in your games there are no guarantees as to what happens afterwards.

"Long story short, it can be relative to whom the idea is juxtaposed with but, I would say for the most part, if you hope to be really good at chess, it is fool hearty to not try understanding the intricacy and pertinence of an "opening system"."

I liked your point paradox about how it may depend on the player -- not just their level, but also their particular strengths and weaknesses.

But regarding openings... I am generous enough to say it's not foolish to study them a bit, but I don't think I could possibly disagree any more strongly on the statement that it's as much as foolish to do the opposite. Beyond, say, a brief overview of what you're trying to do, which takes maybe a half hour and most of it you can learn as you go.

By the way if you guys are curious... I think on one of the first threads I have ever posted here, 6 years ago maybe, I was very much for openings, probably using similar arguments to what you guys are. Although I think my main argument was that in learning openings you can also learn chess in general. I have already addressed that point in this thread.