I was wondering everyone's thoughts on this, do you think a person is better off knowing a few openings in depth or knowing a lot of openings but to a lesser degree?

A few openings in depth. (Nimzo-Indian, Ruy Lopez and the Sicilian is what someone once recommended to me.)


It helps to know a few other openings/lines. It helps a lot to know the ideas in certain systems/setups. My reportoire doesn't branch off too much early in the game, giving me rarely more than 2-3 choices.

It depends what your goal is. If you just love chess and what to learn as much as you can, it does no harm to read up and play through games of different openings. Understanding opening systems and how they work can help alot when it comes to planning for you middlegame. for example if you play the colle, you would know that a kingside attack with white bishop etc is in order so you woudnt start a queenside attack just yet and so on. of course unless the position wanted you to play that!

For tournament play tho, of course a player should know his/her opening repetoire covering all or if not most common moves. This can be more for some than others, ie. some people branch off quicker than others! .ie Kings Gambit, Scandinavian and so on.

For me, when i play tournaments i wouldnt like to venture outside my repetoire but for blitz and friendly games, it can be interestng to play openings you dont know as well as they can be interesting for a change. Chess isint about winning all the time, but having fun too. People who play the same opening for years over and over (usually a business man who plays the colle!) MUST imo get bored at some stage. A variety of openings lead to a variety of middlegames and so to to endgames, that cant be a bad thing at all, and in the long run will make you a better(knowledgeable) player.

I will have to agree with the others who have replied to this by saying knowing a few openings in depth is better than knowing many openings to a lesser degree.

The ideal situation would be to have two openings ready for any particular opening moves that you are faced with. I used to play the Averbach line against the King's Indian based on an article that I had read in Chess Life and Review. Later I picked up the Samisch in part because I helped a team-mate in his preparations to play the Samisch himself. Similarly I would probably be comfortable playing the main line of the King's Indian because I analysed many games with a senior master friend who was an expert on this system and used it to crush other senior masters.

Crash

A couple of comments:

I'm going to disagree with the group here and say that neither is appropriate for someone who's weak enough to be asking the question. Or, rather, it depends on what you mean about knowing openings.

You need to understand what's going on in the opening. A lot of class players, I've found, are excellent if you play into their preparation, but completely lost if you don't. This gets back to studying the classics.

eg 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 - well, that's been busted. But without an opening book in front of you, I doubt most class players will find the bust - with the result that it's an opening that Steinitz and Pillsbury used effectively multiple times.

And every popular opening is littered with stuff like that. Forgotten byways, moves that have been dismissed because they're busted - but, of course, the bust requires grandmaster-level-knowledge, but all the same you won't find it in most opening books because all the GMs know not to play it.

So this is what makes me nervous about saying know one or two openings deeply. If you really know them, sure ...

But I'm a firm believer that your results will be determined more by knowing what to do when your opponent plays an unexpected move than they will by what move number you're on when your opponent finally does play an unexpected move.

Huh? All my sources show only a slight edge for white with best play on both sides. I have actually played this line in tournament games on a number of occasions with good results though I started to get frustrated with the fact that it wasn't an opening to count on when you needed to win.

My database has 1127 games with White's percentage of points being 55%. White wins comprise 37%, draws 35% and losses 28%.

In games played in 2005 through 2007 the winning percentage remains the same. In some lines the winning percentage for white goes up to 60% but so does the rating discrepency between White and Black which means that you would expect to see the higher rated player win more games.

Crash

I entirely agree, except with the openings mentioned.

Best to learn the Alapin, French, and Scotch gambit. Against d4 you may want to look at the Dutch Leningrad or the simple Queens's Gambit.

The Alapin is imo very ugly I never play it as white nor as black because I don't like either side.

The best choice of openings depends alot on what you want and what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you know you're good in closed positions where it usually comes down to strategy, then you can try the Closed Sicilian, KIA, KID, French... If you prefer open positions where you need tactics, then you should just play Open Sicilians, the Scotch, maybe the King's Gambit, and maybe the Sicilian and Grunfeld as black.

There is no general opening advice or an opening that's just "best" to play.

Also don't look too much at statistics. If the statistics are overwhelming (60% 1-0, 20% 1/2, 20% 0-1) then it's a signal that it is probably bad in all variations black can play... But 37/35/28 like Crash said is not extreme and very well playable for black, as long as you know what you're doing.