lichess.org
Donate
Beeshop

A radical experiment with my opening repertoire

Opening
I’m going to only play the openings that I usually try to avoid like death. I’m curious to see whether this actually changes my performance, and if so, in which way. May God have mercy on my beloved rating points.

It is common knowledge that everyone likes chess openings. It is often said that without the opening, chess would just be a boring game of shuffeling pieces around in silly middlegames and endless endgames. It’s hard to imagine something more fun and exciting than studying opening theory. It’s like trying to remember all the words in a dictionary in alphabetical order, with fatal consequences if you happen to make a tiny single mistake. It just really gets the blood pumping.

Regarding opening repertoire, there is this general advice to focus in depth on a few particular lines, and stick to these in tournament play. This makes some sense, because when you are in charge of 50% of the moves being made, why wouldn’t you safe yourself some energy by just not playing certain stuff?

However, if you think about it, this mindset is quite limiting. I notice it myself. I am, in contrast to what other might claim, also a human being, and I like sticking to things I feel comfortable with. But many games follow similar patterns, and by following the same patterns too much, you eventually lose the flexibility to learn new things. (Well, that’s an hypothesis, not a proven fact.)

Learning chess as a child (or beginner)

A person that never played chess before, doesn’t know anything openings. Over time, you slowly develop some habits. Perhaps by personal taste, perhaps by imitating stronger players you admire. It doesn’t really matter anyways at that stage, as long as you just roughly follow some general opening principles. I remember that I never had to be afraid of reaching positions I wasn’t familiar with, because basically every position was unfamiliar. It gives some kind of freedom to explore.

I used to play the standard ‘Italian game’ with both colors, which children tend to do when learning about developing pieces. So e4, Nf3, Bc4, Nc3, 0-0 in any random order. Then, I learned about ‘opposite sides castling’. I would put the B’s on e2 and g5, the Q on d2, and go 0-0-0!!. Then, when the opponent went 0-0 and h6?? (children are taught to create a flight square after castling, as back rank mates cause massive emotional outbursts, and teachers really dislike these.), I launched a massive kingside attack. Oh boy how amazingly that worked back then.

Then, I learned about the queens gambit. Sacrificing a pawn to gain the center. I started playing d4 and then c4, and it worked really well too. In the beginning I had some fear. Nobody actually told me what happens after black accepted the gambit with dxc4. However, I slowly figured out that absolutely nobody ever took the pawn. No really, no child ever dared to take a free pawn so early in the game. So in the end, I realized that once every one-million games I would reach some unfamiliar position, but far more often I got exactly what I wanted.

It says something about fear. What it does to us. Nowadays I’m much less inclined to play wacky new things (like normal openings, in my case), because I’m afraid. At the same time, I also realize more and more that my opponents are also human. They also have their habits and their fears. Knowing that they are not almighty, we might have way more room to explore than we sometimes give ourselves.

By the way, I stopped playing my beloved queens gambit much later, because I dislike(d) these Tarrasch structures. When c- and d-pawns are all traded, both sides go 0-0 and everything is symmetric. I ‘feared’ people would play ...d5 and ...c5, so to say.

The upcoming experiment

I wanted to try something new. Something radical. Something that will shock the world. I’m going to try to play only openings that I would usually avoid. I’m going to actively avoid the openings I normally likes very much. I just want to see what happens. Will I lose more often? Will I make a fool of myself? Will my social status suffer? Will my cats start feeding me instead of me feeding them, as a consequence of extreme pity? I don’t know what will happen, but I’m curious.

Quite recently I changed my openings by quite a bit (on Lichess, during blitz). I experimented a little with just random first moves. Nothing much changed regarding performance. In fact, I, an established 1. d4-player (as described above), started playing some 1. e4 just to be silly. Turned out I scored marginally better with it. (Only 1. f4 was more successful, which is also hilarious if you think about it.) And to be fair, I felt more inspired these games. Like, everything was fresh. I could already start spending time on move 2, as I was fully out-of-book. So perhaps alternating openings does have a certain value.

Openings I usually play (and shall avoid)

Unfortunately, I cannot reveal my deeply developed opening repertoire. People might identify my identity and prepare even deeper countering stuff. Oh wait, who am I kidding?... Who cares about preparing anyways at my level?! If you are a future opponent: well done. Good luck finding holes in my repertoire. Though admittedly, there is a point where Swiss cheese (so called hole-cheese) has so many holes that the name ‘cheese’ in no longer applicable, and ‘vacuum’ would be more suitable.

So, the lists included:

White:
Trompovski: 1. d4 followed by 2. Bg5 no matter what.
Bird: 1. f4 and I like to continue with 2. g3.
Some alapin as white: 1. e4 c5 2. c3
English: 1. c4, without any specific follow up plan.
French: 1. d4 e6 2. e4 d5. 3. Nd2. Specifically this line, others aren’t allowed.

Black:
Kings indian: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 and I like the Glek-setup with Na6 later.
Nimzo indian: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6
Modern: 1. e4 g6 2. d4 d6. Specifically not playing Nf6.
Caro cann: 1. e4 c6 as described in previous blogs.
French: 1. e4 e6. Although a favor the Caro a little more nowadays.
Benoni: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5

And just in general, I’m not afraid of any weird sidelines and of-beat openings. Things like 1. e4 c5 2. Na3?! or perhaps 1. b3 don’t impress me much.

Openings I usually avoid (and shall start playing)

Let me try to rank them from highest fear rate to lowest, although it’s very subjective. It’s the same for both colors, although black is usually scarier.

All 1. e4 e5 lines. There are so many options here, and I never seen any of them.
Queens gambit, both declined and accepted. The Tarrasch-like setups in particular.
Some Grünfeld stuff: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 weird opening I think
Scandinavian: 1. e4 d5.
Open sicilian: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4. I used to play the Kan-variant as black (with 2. e6) for a long time. But it really didn’t suit my style, I found. As white, I don’t know anything about sicilians.
Dutch: 1. d4 f5. Although my Bird-experience helps.

I can go on forever, but in general, I want to play variations that I usually don’t play, despite knowing they exists.

Final words

I will see what happens. Playing Lichess blitz, there is nothing to lose besides dignity, so it a good way to mess around. Perhaps I will write a conclusion for this experiment over a couple of weeks, but perhaps I have lost too much dignity by then. The future will tell.