Some very beginner questions about "theory"

Not even quite sure how to ask this but... when people speak of a particular opening requiring a lot of "theory", what exactly does that mean? And on a more practical level, about how many games does a player have to play before they start to have some sense of how particular openings will tend to play out?  I try to get a sense of how this opening will become constrained or that one will be very sharp, and as of yet, I can't say it's a very coherent sense. In short, I'm still playing game to game. Are we talking hundreds of games? Thousands? Signed, Patzer.

"theory" would be the amount of knowledge and work we have on an opening. the more games the more analysis done after and more ideas are gained.. its like a tree- it grows up and out. the lines get deeper and wider. also themes in certain openings could be harder to grasp than others, making it more theoretical.

as for how many games it takes to understand it would vary on skill. for example if youre clueless on pawn structure, you could play an opening nearly an infinate number of times without becoming strong, all due to the fact youre not listening to the skeleton of the position.

Quite a few GMs tend to play the same opening lines over and over.  Some of these lines run quite deep on to 20 moves or more.  Those are the openings that require a lot of theory.  You can take a look at the Masters games in Game Explorer to get an idea of which lines have a lot of theory.

Other openings vary away from the standard replies quite early.  In lines like that, both your opponent and you are going to have to think on your own rather than rely on knowledge of the lines from GM games.  Some players know a lot of theory but are not as good at calculating on their own, and so when you face that type of opponent, it's probably a good idea to get them out of book by playing an offbeat move as soon as possible.

On the other hand, an opening without a lot of theory is the Bongcloud: 1 e4 e5 2 Ke2!

Thanks all, this is a great help.  A better understanding of "theory" and I'm gathering I've got a lot more games to play before I have a clearer sense of where different openings tend.  Till then, move by move.  And when in doubt, the Bongcloud.

And my next question is going to be about pawn structure... :)

It all depends on chess player.

Given a position, a chess player analyzes what is the best continuation for him and for his opponent. Opening theory is just everyone knows the position upfront and many people analyzed hundreds of times and fine-tuned their analysis over and over by many other people.

That is what scares me about 1.d4 openings, they are positional for the most part but a crazed bloodfest can be just around the corner if one of the players goes for it...

For a really closed position, dont move your pawns at all!!!

What d'you wanna know?

That's a whole other topic discussion, probably more than that. Pawn structure I'm ok - I've gotten pretty good at setting up coherent well-defended structures. But I tend to freak out when I have to end a game with a lot of pawns and not a lot of pieces. I need to find a good source for studying how to move pawns well and wisely in the endgame.  I suspect that's asking a lot of message boards.

based on your last post it seems like studying endgames is what you need. i always was very bad at endgames and did everything i could to avoid them. now i dont mind them at all and have a more relaxed relationship to chess

People here pretty much summed it very well the answer for your question.For instance i ve play sicilian dragon hundreds of times,and i still get badly beaten in it!

"Theory" is a fancy word that roughly means "how it works."  The theory of the internal combustion explains how internal combustion engines work.  The theory of evolution explains how evolution works (or doesn't depending on your point of view).  The theory of gravity explains how gravity works.

Chess theory explains how to play chess.  Opening theory explains how to play the opening.  This can mean a couple things.  When most people say "opening theory"  they are talking about prepared variations and main lines and such.  However ideas like development, king safety, central control, etc...  could also fall under the category of opening theory.  When it is said that an opening requires a lot of theory it means that it is difficult to find the best moves over the board, so players have studied them before they have to play them and memorized them.  So to answer your question, the theory you speak of is not generally learned from games.  It's learned from books.

Ah right, book larnin'... Tigergutt (or anyone) - any particular books you recommend for endgame study? I'm sure I could track it down somewhere else in these message boards, but if you do have recommendations it would be great.

A lot of people recommend Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course.  It starts simple, and slowly works its way up.  Another good book is Paul Keres' Practical Chess Endings.  William Hartston's The Penguin Book of Chess Openings is a useful introduction to opening theory.

Great thanks! 

You need to be trapped in opening positions few times in a game, then you will start appreciate the opening theory

OH I appreciate it - like when my computer was always pulling out the Nimzowich defense nf3 when I played e4 and because I had no clue it always wasted me in about four moves. So I finally learned the steps to avoid the traps. I got it. (Of course there are many examples, but that particular one for some reason stuck in my craw - because the computer kept using it and I kept losing. Well of course I always lose to the computer, but losing really really fast.) Just that multiplied exponentially out to 10 or 20 moves for a particular opening, that's opening theory. Now I'm going to go study the Rubenstein French...

yes... I usually do well with anything of of King's pawn games... mabye the Ruy lopez, or the Giocco Piano.