The Top 5 Opening Myths

Most club players choose their openings based on factors that aren't relevant

I’ve been doing it again. I’ve been arguing with people about openings on Twitter. I don’t do this for fun. You think it’s fun arguing with guys who write threads about the French? I do it to keep my finger on the pulse of the metagame. And what I’ve found is that many players are basing their opening repertoires on factors that don’t really make sense when you get right down to it. So this week, we’re talking about the top five opening myths.

1. Non-book moves should be severely punished
   What even is a book move?! Well, I guess it’s the move in the book…but which book? The reality is that in most positions there are multiple playable moves. Opening book authors try to cover the important lines, but they can’t cover everything.
   
   The problem is if you believe that because your opponent played a move that wasn’t covered in your book, they deserve to die a quick and gruesome death. Did their move violate an opening principle? Was it a tactical blunder? If not, it’s probably not that bad of a move, and you need to calibrate your expectations accordingly. At most you can expect a slight advantage over the more common lines. Don’t burn too much time looking for a refutation that’s not there. Keep playing solid moves and dig in for a long battle.

2. You need to avoid your opponents’ preparation
   Two eternal chess truths: Nobody thinks they know enough about the opening, but everybody thinks their opponents know everything. Clearly, both of these can’t be true. If you play against opponents close to your rating, they probably know about as much opening theory as you, on average.
   
   Additionally, in most amateur tournaments, your opponents won’t prepare for you extensively. Often they won’t find out they’re paired against you until shortly before the round, or they can’t find your games online. Or they’re busy, you know, working or hanging out with their family.
   
   Even if you do happen to be paired against some maniac who can spend hours trying to poke a hole in your opening repertoire, you’re still likely best sticking to your guns. This is what many of the top players in the world, like Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura, do, especially with the Black pieces. They play mainlines, know them inside out, and basically say, “Come at me, bro.” This approach seems to be working for them against the toughest and best prepared opponents on the planet.

3. You can’t play mainlines
   Don’t think of them as mainlines. Think of them as the best, most logical moves. You can play these moves without memorizing huge numbers of long variations. Where people get into trouble is they think to play mainlines they need to play them at a grandmaster level. But if you’re not a grandmaster, you probably can’t play any opening at a grandmaster level. But that’s fine! You only need to play it at your current level.
   
   Learning openings is an iterative process that rewards lots of experience, so if you want to one day have an ironclad opening repertoire, you should start playing good openings as soon as possible.

4. Normal openings are boring
   A lot of club players have been convinced that unless they play a weird opening they saw in a video, chess is boring. But no matter what opening you play, at some point you get into an unfamiliar position and you and your opponent are in a battle of wits. At the end of the day it’s always about playing chess and that’s only boring if you think chess is boring!
   
   What’s the absolute most boring opening? The Berlin, right? For most of chess history the Berlin was considered dubious because White could get this endgame.

   

   
   This is a double-edged position. Black has lost castling rights and has doubled pawns, but they have the bishop pair and no weaknesses. Who does this favor? For a long time everyone thought White was much better in this endgame, but Vladimir Kramnik went against consensus and the computer evaluation at the time to make this the backbone of his Black repertoire against Garry Kasparov in their World Championship match. It worked and Kramnik became World Champion.
   Fast forward to 2022 and it’s well established that Black is fine in this endgame, but it’s still a fiendishly difficult position to play with many nuances for both sides. And this is just one of many structures that can arise from the Berlin! If you think a position is boring, it’s almost always the case that you don’t understand the position, not that it lacks possibilities.

5. You need to play aggressive openings to avoid draws
   Below the master level - really, below the grandmaster level - very few games are drawn in any opening. For example, check out the stats for the Petrov, supposedly one of the most drawish openings,  in classical games in the 2000 rating tier on Lichess. Only 11% draws!

   

   
   And I’m guessing most of those draws were not games where neither player made any mistakes. They were probably topsy turvy battles where both sides had chances and the game ended up in a draw by chance. Unless you’re already one of the best players in the world, almost all of your games feature many mistakes by both sides. And if you do end up with the occasional draw, it’s not a bad result. Avoiding draws is the last thing you need to worry about.

So those are five things you can stop worrying about. What should you think about when choosing an opening? Play sound openings, find something you like, and don’t change openings too often. It’s simple, but it takes time to develop the experience to use an opening confidently.