Hi Void,
My understanding is that current opening theory is all about deception and concealment by way of transpositions. Much of the battle in the opening at the highest level is about move order and transpositions. Move ordering your opponent is achieving surprise. See Steve Giddins book "How to Build Your Chess Opening Repetoire" for a detailed discussion of this subject.
With respect to learning openings from opening books my advice is not to bother. Until you are fairly strong you can get by with what you learn by studying GM games in a "solitaire chess" fashion. You may want to consult an opening book if you are having difficulty with a particular opening but under say 1600 most games won't follow book beyond a few moves anyway. In my opinion your time is better spent on other things.

Brian

I believe that the best way to see why the "non-ortodox" moves in the opening are not very good idea is to play with yourself.

Playing against yourself is very useful - it will teach you to respect your opponent in the sense that you shall not make moves assuming that he will not see that what you have seen. Your main goal is to find the best move in the given position - regardless of who your opponent is (noob or GM)!

If you play against yourself, then white-you and black-you look with the same eyes. There are no cheap tricks and blunders... just concentration on the best moves. After the game is over (and in most cases it will not be draw!) analyse it and try to find out why did one side win, and second lose.

It is said that Bobby Fischer used to practice in that manner...

Good luck!

I think no one should be scared against unorthodox opening as long as you have a good middlegame and endgame skills, you will always beat your opponent no matter what opening your opponent chooses.

I have never read so much about French defense, but to my surprise when I decided to read some of it's theory, the moves that I am using in French are standard theory. Credit goes to the books that I have read about proper chess planning and strategy. I think unless you are already good in analyzing chess position,making a good plan and playing in endgame, you should never give to much attention on book lines.

I remember this incident with kasparov, he is giving some lectures on strong promising junior players. Kasparov asked one of his pupil on why the pupil chooses to make that move in the opening in one of his game. The answer of that pupil makes Kasparov scratch his head in disbelief. The pupil told kasparov he used that move because that's what Shirov moved in his own game.

Dvoretsky mentioned before that if you will follow the games of players who give so much attention to booklines, even thought they are still weak in middlegame and endgame, you will notice that in the first few moves their move are strong, but after a few moves their play deteriorate.

As someone who is now learning the proper strategy and tactics of the game, and who used to play in an unorthodox fashion I will try and explain the differences I've noticed so far.

Firstly, from playing the old reactionary method, where I would play what I perceived to be the best move available with the pieces I had developed left me open to unseen or unanticipated attacks, particularly skewers.

I'm not saying the best chess players can't think of decent moves, but generally I've found most unorthodox games I've played may have benefitted me in the short term, but in the long term have caused me problems. I find unorthodox games are linked more to new players as sometimes it occurred to me I was obsessed with looking for the best capture move rather than exploring concepts like pins and beneficial wasted moves.

Now having played structured and disciplined for a while, I have learned that chess is a whole game of patterns. Patterns are easier to recognise when you breed familiarity in your play.

The openings seem to be used over and over again, because they allow quick development of your pieces to get control of the board but also put them in positions to control the most amount of squares and be most adaptable.

It places your pieces in the most optmised positions for attacks like pins, skewers and control, where most games are won and lost. It's difficult to explain but the less concentration you use in the opening (which is just about developing pieces), you can put into the middle game because although you may see the same openings, no two chess games will pan out exactly the same.

Your unorthodox opening may be strong to start with, I agree, but it may not be easily adaptable, so it's very possible a simple middle game move could mate you or cause you real problems in retreating.

That's my take on it, I'm no expert just trying to give you my own thoughts from experience. Hope it helps and brings a fresh outlook to you.

One final thought. The further down from 2000 ELO you go the more likely you are to find people advocating playing inferior, weird and offbeat openings. More often than not they are being encouraged to do it by a few titled players who know better but are trying to peddle a crappy book. That ought to tell you something.

Kudos to all you guys who aren’t buying in to it and I predict that if you work at it you’ll leave all these others guys in the dust.

Yes I’ll agree with that - GM Jon Levitt’s Clarendon Court defence to 1.d4 and anyone who has ever wasted paper writing a book advocating the Grob, spring to mind

I think there’s even one on the Birmingham Opening – lol it may have worked for the late, great Tony Miles (the one time he used it) but mere mortals would be crushed in 20 moves

Closer to ELO 2000 you'll find the bunch that'll blindly follow the "Grandmaster's latest" because GMs play it. That's equally bad.

While I agree that there are people who do this, I disagree with it being equally bad. At least they're playing good moves, even if it's for the wrong reasons.

--Fromper

Equally bad? Not technically because good moves will be good moves. To quote one of my favourite lines from the series Babylon-5 "If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, the work becomes corrupt, impure, and ultimately self-destructive."

My point is this. If you take some shaky-ship opening, say the Elephant Gambit, to illustrate, you patch it up with some 'planks and nails' (good moves) to let it float and fire its 30pounders at your opponent (good ideas and tactics).
Now, suppose you take a frigate class opening, for instance the Pirc Defense, you follow the precise course (moves) laid out by the admirals (GMs) and engage (exit theory) at a late stage only to find out you never bothered to install anything but 15pounders because you could just follow the GM....

Maybe a flawed and incomplete analogy. But for every single opening you play, knowing the themes and ideas must take precedence over actual move-memorization (wow, talking about a subject that has been bombed to death!). If someone plays some move you hadn't seen before and you have no idea how to handle it, for whatever reason.

Sounds like my experiences with the Elephant Gambit and the Ruy Lopez as black.

I did well with the Elephant Gambit against opponents at my own level or lower, but with each game against higher rated opposition, I learned more and more about why GM's won't play it.

With the Ruy Lopez, I've stayed in the book lines longer, but I've actually had a tougher time putting away lower rated opponents. So much so that I'm seriously considering going back to the Elephant Gambit against anyone under 1500. On the other hand, I've stuck it out better against higher rated opponents, and I learn a little bit more about how to play the resulting middle games with each Ruy game I play.

So even though I'm not playing the Ruy Lopez extremely well, just because there's so much to know, I think I'm probably learning more and more about how to play good chess. And that's making me not only a better Ruy Lopez player, but also a better player overall. Compare that to just scoring some cheap wins with the Elephant Gambit, and I think maybe I am better off with the Ruy.

--Fromper