Yeah, Andrew Martin’s series on Smith-Morra Gambit are some of the better ones, as is his part one on the Czech Pirc as black against 1.e4 (part two talks about playing it against 1.d4 and the English, the quality is much reduced and a lot of his ideas don’t really work out in reality). But the Czech was my first ‘surprise’ opening against 1.e4 and although I favour a Sicilian these days, I occasionally play it when I feel like a rest, or am just shamelessly looking for a draw, because I know it off by heart and have introduced my own innovations over time.

However, Martin especially, is guilty of making some half-baked stuff in the Foxy series as well - His one on the QGD for instance - if black declines the pawn with either 2…e6 or 2…c6 he recommends the exchange variation 3.cxd5 - before we even start, this is inferior and allows black to equalise immediately (except of course if black has played the Marshall Defence 1.d4, d5 2.c4, Nf6 - 3.cxd5 is correct then, because of either 3…Nxd5 4.e4 or 3…Qxd5 4.Nc3 giving white a tempo).

Don’t get me wrong, Martin is an IM when all’s said and done, and is a better player than I can ever hope to be - so he must know this line is inferior, my only explanation is, he must be trying to aim the DVD at beginners, because the exchange variation cuts down on a lot of theory - but even then as I recall, he leaves quite a few gaping holes in the DVD. Also his DVD entitled ‘A Complete Defence to 1.d4' is erm… far from complete

But yeah, I agree with you that some of them are good for a taste of the opening, just in most cases you also need a book to back it up

You can go into an 'orthodox' opening and go into a less-well-known path, be a little off-beat while still moving in main-line'ish directions. I do rather well with it myself, but as with anything, it really all depends on your moves. From the openings in my signature, some may be unorthodox or lesser variations, but I go into main lines there.

Maybe Fromper is right. But…I learned chess playing stuff like the English, French, Ruy Lopez and Queen’s Gambit and loved R&P and K&P endings. I have never been rated below 1600 so there must be something to the method. And I’m not the only one advocating this method. Respected teachers like John Nunn, Alex Yermolinsky, Jeremy Silman and before them, CJS Purdy and Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, all advise the same thing. The only people advocating playing offbeat openings and studying nothing but tactics are authors trying to peddle books that make wild promises of rapid improvement even though they know better.

I DO play the Grob Attack on rare occasions but it’s just when want to have some fun. Even then I have enough sense not to play it against anybody I consider a decent player. What I don’t understand is the comment “I do agree that in order to get really good, you need to stick to the mainstream stuff.” If that’s what you’re trying to accomplish why not do it from the very beginning? Why muck about with gambits and trying wild, unsound tactics?

Once you understand how to play sound and solid chess you’ll know enough to recognize unsound chess when you see and take advantage of it. Getting to 1600 should not be that difficult. If you are spending hours and hours studying and having a hard time getting there you are doing something wrong.

I agree with Nasgard. The best way to study an opening is to begin with a book ... but the book must be limited. Use a database in combination with a good chess engine. My opponents always seem to find good moves that aren't covered by the books, and those need to be figured out using the games of others (thus the db), a good engine, and some hard thought. And that, in my opinion, is the good way to learn an opening.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

But I cant help but get the feeling from many of the replies here that there is much disdain for those that play moves which are not "book." One reply even went and called such moves inferior because it is not documented. It this really true? If a move isnt documented then what qualifies it as being inferior? What right does one have to call such moves inferior. Shouldnt it seem that one who use someone else's theory is inferior? After all where is the thought process here? We are merely just moving pieces from memory without any tactical disposition.

It is quite ironic how many implied that the mind or Self is not involved in the opening stages of the game . We just see a pattern, recognize it as being a book move, and immediately offer a book counter. But where is the chess player's own intuition involved here? Are we trying to become like chess engines here? Shouldnt we give thought before making moves rather than simply scan our own database for opening moves? Someone mentioned, "...and those need to be figured out using the games of others (thus the db), a good engine, and some hard thought." Its funny how the poster barely squeezed in "hard thought" at the end of his suggestion, placing much more emphasis on a chess engine and a db of games. This again implies the reluctance to sit down and analyze a game.

Don't take any of my comments as an insult to anyone here. I am merely trying to understand why on earth there are there all these opening books and newbs studying them. What ever happened to teaching opening principles and teaching the chess player to think for himself and not being "book smart," but more "board smart."

“Individual choice of openings is based on the results of careful self-studying. This doesn’t mean, however, that the modern sophisticated openings are for GM’s only, and that less experienced players should stick with off-beat lines. On the contrary, I encourage you to play the most complicated opening set-ups, but on one condition: you should play them not for fashion’s sake and not because somebody told you so, but because of the resulting middlegame positions.

It is much better to take on some openings that will serve you well for years to come rather than restrict yourself to primitive setups designed to avoid theory. Some chess teachers have a low opinion of their audience; they fear their students will not understand sophisticated positional and tactical concepts.

There’s no “chess made easy’ advice that would immediately improve your chess. Widely disseminated promises to introduce new methods, to reveal secrets of the Soviet School of Chess, etc. are no more than smart advertising moves…”

“Sooner or later players find themselves out there on their own, and the outcome of the battle will be decided by matching their middlegame skills”
Alex Yermolinsky in “The Road to Chess Mastery”

“There is a temptation to choose some really unusual openings because the amount of study required is much less. However, I would advise against this. Rarely played openings are usually rare because precisely because they have some defect. Sooner or later your opponents will start to exploit this defect and then you will have to switch openings. If you choose another very unusual opening the process will repeat itself.

A particular genre of books which deserves special attention is that dealing with dubious and rarely played openings…99% of the time the reasons X is rarely played are entirely justified, the ‘recent games’ turn out to be of little value…”
John Nunn in “Secrets of Practical Chess”

Nunn then gives some example from Tony Kosten’s “The Latvian Gambit.” He goes on to comment, “…I was quite baffled as to how the author managed to fill up 144 pages; I had thought a detailed refutation would take 10 pages at most.”

He also makes the comments: “Less honest authors are entirely shameless about such matters. They recommend the most outrageously unsound lines without blushing even slightly. They would never play such lines themselves, of course.”

If you want to become a serious chess player I can recommend both these books. They tell you what it really takes to get better.

Hi JacksonWShowalter,

Extremely interesting quotations you have there! I look forward to reading a few of those titles. And I must read they since then support opening books and I would like to know in more detail on what basis (proof), "...However, I would advise against this. Rarely played openings are usually rare because precisely because they have some defect. Sooner or later your opponents will start to exploit this defect and then you will have to switch openings. If you choose another very unusual opening the process will repeat itself." is based on. In fact, I would like to think that the author should have said it backwards! That opening book moves should be avoided because they are so well known and thoroughly studied, that someone has found a "backdoor" around the move; or if a new player makes a mistake whilst executing the book move then he renders himself at the mercy of his opponent.

Maybe when presented with an unorthodox opening, the opponent will be unsure of your intentions and will therefore have to play much more carefully, if not more conservatively, thereby restricting himself. You see chess is a battle, a conflict between two sides. In Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," one of his main suggestions is deception and concealment (and therefore surprise). Why is this point overlooked is chess? Shouldnt we aim to make our opponent not aware of our intentions? Shoudnt we conceal our main motive from him, that is, leave him totally unaware about our intentions in the middle game? Book openings offer none of these, because we clearly know before hand the type of middle game that will develop.

I’ve met a lot of GM’s and their knowledge of chess has to be experienced to be believed so when they tell me something I listen. Of course there are those who will tell you anything if it puts a few dollars in their pocket. Strangely enough I went through all this a couple years ago with another player; he expressed the same ideas you are. I began to understand he was more interested in what I call philosophical arguments and experimenting than he was in improving. Not that that was bad because he was enjoying the game just as much as anybody, if not more. And that’s what it’s all about, really. Eventually he decided he wanted to get better and his philosophy didn’t work so he took my advice and with a little work added over 200 points to his rating in a couple months.

I was an engineer by profession. Every time I was asked to design something I didn’t start from scratch and reinvent everything. My designs were based on past designs of others that I knew would work. Maybe a little tweaking here and there based on my personal experience (some worked well, others not so well!) but what I did was based on principles discovered by others far more knowledgeable and I wasn’t any the worse engineer because of it. Why should chess be any different?

I never understood how chess was like war. Often in war you don’t know where your enemy is or what he’s doing or what resources are at his disposal. Not so on the chessboard where both players start out equal and everything is sitting there for both to see. If one can’t figure out what the other’s up to it’s because of a lack of knowledge or a result of misjudging the position. There’s nothing philosophical about it…I lose to better players because they know more about chess than me. I beat worse players for the same reason.

I think the idea for the common player is to play knowledgably and accurately. In other words, strong play will take care of the game.

I'm not sure when it begins to pay off to be subtle or misleading. When Fischer was challenging for the world title the conventional wisdom of the Russians was that his play was too straight-forward, that it was easy to see what his aim was in the game. Nevertheless, as other Russians noted, it was not easy to meet Fischer's moves.

Perhaps the lesson is to just build up knowledge and accurate analysis.

Void, you're seriously missing the point. But rather than a philisophical debate, let me give you a concrete example.

As I mentioned earlier, I used to play unsound gambits in order to learn how to attack better. And it worked - I learned how to attack better. And against lower rated opponents, I did fairly well. For instance, when I had to face 1. d4 with black, I'd respond with 1. ... e5, the Englund Gambit. Any master will tell you that this is a bad move that gives away a pawn for little compensation. Yet against players rated above me, but rated below 1800, I never lost with this gambit. I think I scored 4 wins and a draw in slow tournament games.

I tried that gambit on opponents over 1800 three times, and I lost all three games. In one of them, the element of surprise worked in my favor, and I came very close to winning, but I blew the endgame. In the other two, the opponents calmly developed their pieces, controlled the center of the board, gave back the gambit pawn, and beat me easily.

The point is that this gambit is rarely played because it really is objectively weak, and any decent player should be able to improvise a perfectly good defense against it. The same goes for other oddball openings.

The book openings are known as book openings because they're the strong moves that grandmasters play when trying to beat each other. They won't play a weak move when trying to beat each other, so you know the moves they're playing are good. That's why those moves are worth repeating. And that's also how you know that other possible moves are bad. If those other moves were worth playing, grandmasters would be playing them. Trust me - you're not going to come up with a brilliant opening move that no grandmaster has ever examined.

--Fromper