How to confuse opponent?

Hello. I was read the Book of Five Rings and Miyamoto Musashi says to confuse the opponent, and strike vigorously, or something similar to that. Are there are strategies or things to do to confuse the opponent and possibly benefit the person causing confusion? Thanks.

I guess the obvious answer would be to play a gambit opening. For instance, the King's Gambit will cause panic for most beginners right on move #2. However, based on your rating I would recommend focusing on more sound openings first. I have to say I chuckled a bit at your last game. You started the game with 7 consecutive knight moves (not to be confused with the Bob Seger classic). And your opponent hung a pawn on his first move. Why gambit material when all you need to do to win is wait for your opponent to throw away material?

If you want to confuse your opponents at beginner level as White you can play the Scholar's Mate and basically early queen attacks. Also you can play the Fried Liver Attack (if they don't know Traxler Counter-Attack) which will definitely make them panic. And as Black you can learn the Stafford Gambit and the Eric Rosen Trap which you can find on YouTube. Hope this Helps ☺️

Well, I wouldn't bother thinking about confusing and surprising your opponents. At your level you just need to work on fundamentals. Basic opening principles, basic endgames, and tactics, tactics, tactics.

The best way to confuse your opponents at your level is with a well spotted combination that wins material or delivers a checkmate. And hover up all the pieces they leave hanging, that'll confuse the hell out of them

Agreed don't worry about confusing people have a look at some advice on improving lessons, puzzles etc. Good luck 

https://support.chess.com/article/437-how-do-i-get-better-at-chess

I’d rather learn how to un-confuse myself. I’m just a noob, but trying understand how to play mind games on my opponent seems a waste of time. Just my opinion, good luck trying it out though.

The book of the 5 rings is about swordplay.   Trying to adapt it to other things sorta kinda works but at that point you are not really using the book as intended.  The empty mind trick / book of nothingness is adaptable to many things, for sure, but not everything he says applies: the comments about using a normal sword instead of a gimmicky extra long one means what it says; you can translate that into 'use solid openings not trappy gimmicks' but at some point you are way out of context. 

Anyway, are we going ruy lopez here and putting the opponent's chair looking at the sun?  It means what you want to it mean, but making screwball moves just to throw you opponent off only works in blitz, if they can think it through, the unsound moves fail (trust me, I am an expert on confusing unsound moves that don't work). 

if your opponent plays the caro-kann you can play the hillbilly gambit this will confuse them.

Unlike swordplay, your opponent can see all your pieces and allowed as long as they need to think, so tricking them is nearly impossible, especially at a high level. 

At lower level theres things like the Wayward Queen Attack and the Kadas opening that will let you pwn n00bs all day long, but you will lose to anyone who knows what they are doing. 

let me show you how its done

no one expects it

ah yes i was thinking of recommending the king crab.