What Do People Mean When They Say Something is "Theoretical"?

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defenserulz

I'll oftentimes hear chess commentators say that something is "all theory" or "all very theoretical" and am wondering what they mean by that?  Thanks very much.

Mika_Rao

It's used two ways AFAIK.

First is as in "best guess."  E.g. in some opening or endgame "theory says" ____ is the best or _____ is a win/draw.  We don't know for sure, but experts in that area (GMs) currently believe _____.

Second is as in "objectively true, but practically not."  E.g. "this endgame is a theoretical win"... they may actually mean "it's a definite win, but very difficult to preform OTB"  Queen vs Rook is a recently mentioned position in the forums that could fit this.   Rook vs rook + a and c pawns would be another (a "theoretical draw" but in some cases, and for most players, unrealistically difficult to perform).

Oh, but if you hear someone say "They know a lot of theory" they're probably talking about openings.

SocialPanda

Sometimes I have seen commentator saying: "Incredible, this was all theory!", but then they show a single game between 2300s that reached the same position, so that´s not really theory, it´s not like if it´s widespread knowledge.

But in most cases, when they are speaking about opening positions they only want to say that it has been played many times before.