I Want to Understand WHY Openings are Done The Way They Are!!!

So, I've been frustrated in learning opening theory and moves.  Often, you'll go online and find a tutorial where they guy just says here's X opening and here are the first 8 moves.  

BUT, he or she will often not tell you WHY you are doing things that way and WHY the opponent would typically respond in those standard ways.  I'm assuming some very smart people worked out the theory behind these openings and if people respond "improperly," then they would get exploited/punished in some big way.  But often you don't hear that analysis and the WHY question in these tutorials.  

I often will try to play these standard openings in real games and some guy just deviates and does some move NOT in the video and I'm like GRRREAT!  The video teacher didn't say what to do when people deviate from these lines.  They teach as if peope naturally will just roll out these 7 or 8 moves exactly as such and then reach middle-game.  But that's not reality and I don't understand what to do when people don't play the standard "book lines."  

Do you know what I mean?  Is there any resource you've come across which teaches the WHY aspects and how to respond and exploit bad opening play?  

Would really appreciate it!!  Thanks! 

Hi Defenserulz,

I'd like to recommend www.chessopenings.com, Dereque Kelley does a great job explaining the why's and how's of a variety of openings.

Best regards

When the opponent doesn't follow book, you rely on your general chess understanding and experience to, first of all, judge if their deviation is a blunder (in which case you'd punish it) or if it's just a playable sideline (in which case you continue calmly).

What's that?  You don't have enough general chess understanding and experience to judge this, much less punish a player when their deviation is a blunder?!

No worries!  You're part of the, oh, I don't know, 95% of chess players.  And unless the person doing the video was a titled player, the person you learned the opening from is also generally clueless about what to do when a non-book move is played.

What to do?

In the short term:
Learn the opening principals.  These alone are enough to carry you at least a few hundred more rating points.  When you are interested in an opening, only expend enough effort to learn the main line and maybe 1 or 2 main sidelines and (importantly) the idea of the opening.  (This is where guys like Dereque Kelley are useful).  Wikipedia and FCO are useful too.

In the long term:
Learn basic endgames and basic middlegame strategy.  This will form a basis of chess understanding that will leave you feeling not clueless when someone leaves book.  Sure you won't know exactly how to punish or plan against various deviations (probably until you're a grandmaster) but at the very least you wont feel clueless.

Good luck.

In each opening position there are typically up to around 30 moves that could be played.  Can you imagine how long it would take to go through all of those moves in all of the plies?  They would be lucky to get through move 2.  David Pruess did a video a couple of years ago on all of the possible *first* moves.

A lot of those roughly 30 moves are tactical errors.  If your opponent plays a move that you have never seen before in a book or in a video you should ask yourself if your opponent made a mistake.  If you aren't playing a master there is a good chance that it is a mistake.

If you discover a tactical refutation of your opponent's move, check to make sure your that your refutation is actually safe.  Examine all of your opponent's checks, captures and threats.  You need to make sure that you aren't going to lose material if you play your "refutation".

If, after a through search, you can't find a tactical refutation of your opponent's move then assume that his move was playable.  After all, masters come up with novelties all the time.  Perhaps your opponent has unwittingly stumbled upon one.  :-)  Now you have to rely on your own judgement.  Your first priorty, as always, is to make safe moves.  You don't want to give away your pieces, so you should examine all of your opponents checks, captures and threats.

Once you have identified what (if anything) your opponent is threatening on his next move, identify what you would like to do about it (if anything).  

If there isn't a threat on the board that you have to respond to, get your pieces out.  While you are doing so, try to make threats that your opponent has to respond to.  You may be able to force your opponent to waste time responding to your threats instead of getting his pieces out.

I too are looking for the ideas , why we open like that.

Still searching.

I guess that different lines will give different gametypes, and that it is possible to open in  a way that gives the kind of game you like , but you dont decide the openings alone, unless you makes sacrifies so tempting that your opponent goes for them.

Activity and the center for the most part.  Modern openings revolve around maintaining or wresting the initiative. 

Sounds like you make typical mistakes.  What you need is understanding.  Start with basic endgames, tactical patterns, and positional themes.  For openings stay simple and straightforward, stay away from gambits (except the From if 1.f4 or the Tal if 1.e4,c5 2.f4, maybe even the Evans can be tried with minimal risk), try the Italian (if 3...Nf6 then not 4.Ng5 but 4.d4!? with opening lines and giving him a choice of which pawn to take, and 4...Nxe4?! is the incorrect choice because it helps white build a strong initiative and play dxe5! taking f6 away from the knight) as white and as black the Scandinavian, 2...Nc6 open game, and the Nimzo-Bogo Indian complex against 1.d4. 

Learn principles behind the opening such as develop minors, castle, connect the rooks (by moving the queen) and always keeping in mind the center. 

Mika,

Thank you for that thoughtful response.  You are very articulate and seem knowledgeable in your advice!  

And YES, I'm definitely part of that 95% or so that can't do those things you've described (identifying genuine blunders vs. alternative lines and being able to punish a genuine blunder).  

I've studied opening princples before, but it's still hard to tell what is best to do when there is a line deviation by my opponent AND when there are multiple options that might fit those principles.  It's like, do I take Option 1...Option 2...Option 3, etc.  And I always have this uncertainty about it all, as if I might possibly be missing something huge.  I guess I wish I really had GM level mastery of openings.  lol.  I don't like the feeling that maybe I've missed something.  Maybe it's some weird psychological thing for me...but I hate that feeling when playing actually.  

On the other hand, I'm not willing to give up my social and work life to gain that level of mastery, so I guess I'll simply have to make small progress on things.   

Yeah, I'm with you on that. As long as my pieces are centralized I try to connect my rooks by move 10. And if I am not mated or dropped a piece by then, it means that I really haven't done anything wrong so far. 

In some cases, that's true... that the "book" moves are played because alternatives are inferior. But in other cases, a particular move gets played simply because it's fashionable, or because Grandmaster Winner once played it against Grandmaster Loser.

Fashion is a factor on chess, as in other fields.

I like these videos too. Dereque is very clear and covers lots of points when he is doing his videos.

I'll have to double-check Dereque's videos.  I watched one he did on the Philodor Defense after someone recommended it to me, but I didn't find enough detailed discussion of the WHY type questions.  He did maybe a bit more than other videos I've seen, but I guess I was looking for very detailed analysis exploring how to specifically exploit different sub-optimal responses.  I'll have hear more generic types of analysis like, if BLACK does this, then he weakens x,y,z without more specifics of exactly how to exploit (although sometimes it's enough for me to figure out the rest on my own).  ...At least that's my first impression of him.  I'll give his videos a second look.  

Are you sure that you are studying the right things? Rated under 1000, your main focus should be tactics (especially) and endgames, not openings.

*shhh* This is an "old" account I'm typing under.    Rated a bit higher than that.  

But, nevertheless, I do need lots of practice in ALL areas!!  I'm just very weak! 

Btw, what resources do you recommend for tactics training and endgames?

For tactics training, I prefer to get my "puzzle" situations from actual games, rather than composed positions. I seem to learn a lot more from "live fire exercises" than from "manoevers". Your mileage may vary.

Are you aquainted with most of the usual tactical themes? Pin, fork, skewer, overload, discovered attack, decoying, diverting, line opening, line cutting, sealing and sweeping, etc?

How about model mating patterns? Corridor, smothered, epaullette, Morphy, Paulsen, Anderssen, Lolli, Greco, Anastasia's mates?

I think Blueemu might be right. You may be focusing too much and too deep on something that may be above your skill level.

One thing I have learned about studying chess: There are a lot of things you can read and learn about, but, in the end, it is up to you to sort it out and put it to use yourself. 

Becasue of the complex nature of chess, there are very few definate paths you can take to victory. This may be why you didn't find answers in those videos.

Go back, watch the videos again. Use the knowledge you have gained. Go back and watch the videos again, use the knowledge you have gained. Do this several times and, with a little luck, you will begin to understand on your own why the moves are made.

For me, I play mostly online chess. So I often go back to a video several times in 1 game.

Lastly, take your games, find the openings they are using and learn about those. It is much easier to begin understanding openings you have been playing rather than just trying to implement a new one.

If you want to be more confused, try Chess960 where there is no guy to give moves or a tutorial. One recent game in my first three moves where I was white, I moved my pawn to d4, developed a knight and moved my pawn to e3 and Stockfish was showing an evaluation of -1.43 for black

And I wasn't even losing any material for at least a good 10 moves.

"The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" by Reuben Fine.  Great book!

Same could be said of endgames usually.  It is quite telling that they couldn't find an example from actual gameplay and had to go to a composition to illustrate a principle.  It begs the question that if they couldn't find an example from actual play then how useful could it be in practice? 

get a life....