Is learning openings that important and how can I create my own opening repertoire

@mvhk said in #30:
> I enjoyed it so it was not a burden. Besides now people think that I know much more openings than I really know. That can be an advantage too.
Yeah that's a clear advantage!
Playing a new opening gives you more confidence than just knowing the theory. Also playing different openings enhances the different playing styles of a player and improves pattern recognition.

@chesstricksandtraps said in #31:
> Yeah that's a clear advantage!
> Playing a new opening gives you more confidence than just knowing the theory. Also playing different openings enhances the different playing styles of a player and improves pattern recognition.

I've recently tried out chess960, another experiment. It took me 1000 games to get a + 2200 rating with tempo 3 minutes. +2200 with that tempo is top 100 at lichess.

I get the impression those games also helped me to be play unknown openings better but I can't proof that.

So I agree with you that openings are definitely more than memorizing moves.

Thank you. (I expected blitz as 1000 rapid or even classical game would take way too much time.)

IMHO there is another thing to consider: if deeper study of openings and building a personal repertoire is indeed where I'm lacking most at the moment as most of us have only limited time we can (or want) to devote to chess study. For example, while I certainly want to look deeper into some openings, I believe that there are other areas like understanding the position aspects or middlegame strategies (and also some endgame types) where the the time spent would bring more benefit to my play.

@kindaspongey said in #23:
> "... To play chess competitively, you need to develop an opening repertoire. ..." - Learn to Play Chess Like a Boss (2019) by GM Patrick Wolff

That is where the social layer of the game has gotten stuck into. Nobody seems to realize that the knowledge is getting bloated to the point that the layer is taking an increasing amount of the competition cognitive style. on the side of memory before understanding. And I can tell that for some, (not just in chess), it is easier to store knowledge in memory, than to understand how many bits of that knowledge could be coming from the same underlying "physics" (sorry , that is my alma mater of conceptualisation of the external world).

So bloated game of knowledge specializations. That bloat makes it increasingly fastidious game to perform in. There will always be champions on top of that. sure. Just it would need more parenting from younger age eventually, so the whole universe of the child will become a chessboard, so that they can actually learn the physics before the bloat.

Fortunately, I can use lichess features, that won't have me need to perform in that of knowledge, and keep playing/studying the chess where it matter to me. Going selfish, if I was not before.

Could it be that it was not as bloated during their times, for the illustrious source of the quotes above? (Lasker?).

I think it is fine that the knowledge game of chess layer or variant exist. But, I would find it more aesthetically pleasing if there were some equal information categories still. And increasing time pressure, might be one way, but it seems to me to be a dead end on the skill of reasoning, and perhaps too many behavioral strategies related to time take over.

I believe in open book variants. Like the lichess game variant (it is there just not rated), "from position". Such position could be anywhere on the playable known opening tree, and at the end of that knowledge, one would have playable equal informatino game continuing from there. or maybe do like in correspondance, the closest thing to an equal informatin game. We can even use the bloat, as it has been offloaded for us all in the opening explorer. so, people of my coginitve style, can have the real game of reasoning skill to the max from begginning to end of games. The ancestral game spirit, maybe. I like to think so.

There memory without memorisation can happen, without having to get stuck into repertoire speicialization strategies. I say get stuck, but I do recognize that there might be an art or a game in that type of chess too (the current only competitive chess type). It is a pity that other correspondence chess use engine too, because then what game is it. not one of comeptition anymore. It is a pity that modern techonology is not used, with imagination, to create new categories ackowledging that the game is evovling, and that new niches of social compeition could be enjoyed by different cognitice style populations. I know, my father was one, never learn the name of any opening, and a lover of chess nonetheless.. The atlas versus the physics.

Astronomy versus Astrophysics. Anatomy vs Physiology. Speciation tree versus ecosystems. .... Dictionary before communication. the list can go on.. I got another one: Accounting versus Mathematics.

Naming each cloud we can name, versus predicting any could shape evolution with time and data grid of pressure data to help, if ambitious about scope of predictions.

of course, if keeping accumulating data, and keeping the only type of competitive chess to have that game of knowledge layer follow, memorization method of memory involvment not familiarity method of memory wlll keep increasing in proportion and ratchet population pruning of the other cognitive style. and if the chess playing population including amateurs keep increasing, there is still only room for one at the top of the pyramid, and so there will always be the rare life dedicated to that, to let us thing chess is still a worthy game. One can prune an increasing population with plenty artifical tests of selective nature and get a unique specimen. This funnel can keep producing the few that would make us think the game keeps being the same in essence, while the populatoin dynamics, if we had the trait structure of it, would not be of stationary nature, but would keep having the memory before understanding strategy-able type of cognitive style perform increasing better.

I admit that is one population dynamics model out of my imagination. I just can't help but think that way. An extension of static reasoning, applied to dynamical population level questions. We can keep skimming on that, by tunnel vision of 1D ELO rating, and keep thinking Lasker game of chess (social competition included) is the same now... but that would be voluntary blindfold.

Culture inertia. lack of imagination at a large scale. (within measure, this is still "just" a game, but so well packaged it might be a microcosm to study).

@kindaspongey said in #23:
> "... To play chess competitively, you need to develop an opening repertoire. ..." - Learn to Play Chess Like a Boss (2019) by GM Patrick Wolff

Maybe a pedantic point, but unless you're sitting down at the board for your first move as white and working out what to do from first principles, you've already got an opening repertoire! And to the OP, looking at your database on here you seem to play pretty consistently, so I'd say that in that sense you've definitely got one.

The question is more whether you want to change some of it up - look up a specific thing to play against the Sicilian, say - or make some of it deeper. And if you're often losing games because they get a bad position out of the opening then I'd say that yeah, you probably do, so long as you don't go crazy and spend months learning grandmaster level theory in Najdorf sidelines that you'll never actually see on the board or something like that.

> GM level theory in NameXY sidelines.

A proposal for a theory of learning hypothesis, from machine learning recent publication from Deepmind, its ramifications, as machine tested theory of learning, about the core of this thread. Should I go specialist, or find which groove I did not visit.. etc... generalist vs specialist. And how big is the worl of chess positions?

lichess.org/forum/team-dboings-musings/hypothesis-of-learning#1

there are other kinds of theories that are less exhaustive and with potential to see across the mainlines. Chess pawn structures, I find promising for myself at least, but dare to think, also for my possible similar cognitive style in the hood here. As a "compressing" regrouping or organizing real chess theory of the opening knowledge monster. That can let the astronomy of branching points and defined opening data segments, be just that, and a player or learner could keep that to retrive offloaded data. while being sufficient autonmous player using a more functional and self-consistent reference frame while thinking over a game, or first studying chess. Pity the word GM is in the title. If used as "secrets herein, buy me" bait, then that would not work, as it is not a set of procedural rules being sequentially delivered. but a web of self supporting (board logic based) content that sheds light on the question of where plans come from and where they go. opening name retreival address being in tow of that logic. upon further study, or experince in exploration, c'est selon le style

I wonder why theory is so overloaded. and meaning different things. Is that the same theory as in perhaps well all the positional nameable features, say, perhaps pawn structures, or action ideas based on board features upstream and desirable board features downstream no ETA or range of ETA.

I agree op should look in own insight to see if cp based measures have a per nameable repertoire or "opening family" (first move or 2?) association, given enough game samples.. But I think, expert or not, we all come equipped with an awareness (or its potential if working on it) of own familiarity. be it in the imagination surge triggered by a position just seen, or the hesitation about finding a stimulating move (stimulating the also evolving desirability skilll upon imagination and vice-versa).

we should not be afraid to give names to thing that are likely invariants or evolving with experience, such as the possible mechanistic relationships between our mind process exiting natural language approximations.

then we can go beyond throwing truths at each other, and start discerning more, in collaboration, about the hidden stories we keep avoiding, by common sense based truth, so easily swayed by anecdotal but shiny evidence. And the weight of history..

@mvhk said in #24:
> ... Is 100 ratingpoints worth hundreds of hour of study openings? ...
Is "hundreds of hour study openings" the only option?
"... I am not a big fan of weaker players memorizing lots of opening lines they will never play. However, it is quite a different issue to spend a small amount of time learning how to play your openings a little better each time they occur. A long journey begins with a single step. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2005) web.archive.org/web/20140627023809/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman50.pdf
@dboing said in #34:
> ... on the side of memory before understanding. ...
Who is advocating "memory before understanding"?
"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)