You’re not a grandmaster; why play mainlines?

I’ve made plenty of forums with opening advice for beginners and similar. But one thing I find so strange is how committed to playing uber-mainline theory so many players are, just because top players or the engine slightly favours it.

Newsflash: 99%+ of this platform can play almost any opening (at least ones that aren’t completely refuted or sacrifice more than a pawn’s worth of material) and will do better as a result than trying to play master lines.

Why? A few reasons:

1) Surprise factor. Checking the lichess players database at the u1600 level (which is most of the people on this platform) and against e4 e5 nc3 nf6, 60%+ of games are either the Italian or the Spanish. That means that your opponent faces those two openings nearly 2 games out of every 3. For comparison, one of my favourite openings that I can’t recommend highly enough - the ponziani - is played just four games every hundred at the same level. Which opening do you think your opponent will be more likely to know what they’re doing in? Surprise them, know your lines better than they do, and you’ll pick up easy wins.

2) Simple plans. The reason why top players choose certain lines is because the engine (along with hundreds of years of theorising by masters) has shown that they are the best way to play against well-prepared opponents who are unlikely to make “silly” mistakes. Your opponents do not meet that criteria. I’ve been 2100 rated here very recently, and I hung my rook in a game today. Your games will not be decided by a slow conversion of the +0.3 engine advantage in the Spanish. How your games WILL be decided, though, is if you understand the ideas of a simpler opening (whether it’s attacking the king, or targeting a pawn, or whatever). This will allow you to assert your will on your opponent, and keep the initiative. 

3) Fun. Play openings that are fun. Take your games into less well-known territory, and enjoy the complications and let the creativity flow. Don’t waste your time playing another Italian, safe in the knowledge that the position you’re playing has been played hundreds of times by players better than you, and always comparing your choices to theirs. Play something whacky and no-one can judge you for it. Want to be an expert in a niche gambit? Who’s to tell you you’re playing it wrong if they don’t know it either?

Rant over, feel free to try and change my mind, but I promise you’ll find greater success with off-beat openings. 

4) I just dont know lines

Very reasonable

I've actually been trying to learn openings that are "weird" or uncommon for this exact reason. It makes the game more interesting and can sometimes be amusing when you play an opening your opponent has obviously almost never seen before, if they've seen it at all. You can almost always tell when this is the case, and the results can be disastrous — for them.

For example, I've taken your post about the Ponziani Opening quite seriously, with surprisingly favorable results as I've started to get better at it:

This game wasn't quite as good, but I still think it's another good example of how an unprepared opponent can choke quite embarrassingly when placed in unfamiliar territory:

My quest to learn more "weird" openings has continued since then, with wildly varying degrees of success. I've got a couple a few "weird" ones I'm still learning, and I'm hoping to add even more Weird™️ to this here opening repertoire as I go along.

If you’re ponziani-ing (which is brilliant! Well done lad) you need to remember h3 is often a very handy move to avoid that pin. Particularly after d6