well i'm not here to argue to prove that i am right and to tell what you should or should not do.
it's just my opinion that you are missing the bigger picture here, which is that the opening sets the ground for the next phase, and good play in the opening will lead to you having well placed pieces and a clear plan for the middlegame (aka increase the chances of you delivering THAT decisive tactic).
if you don't need to study openings to get these good positions or you feel that the edge you get isn't relevant - great! but remember that as the level of play increases every edge starts to matter.
LM
@Lightsss well if the plan is clear then it matters a lot, but this advantage is not marked as a 0,6 plus or something, if I have a good plan after the opening and my opponents has no good option then I don't care if it shows minus 0,9 for me, I still would prefer that position.
i see the point you are trying to make but if your position is -0.9 after the opening then it means that your opening is just bad (aka the plan shouldn't work)
well maybe on your level such a small advantage may turn decisive, but on my level it doesn't mean anything, the game is usually decided by a mistake in defense or a miscalculation. And as I have seen many grandmasters play such games where the advantage shifts from one side to the other many times during the game.
@GentjanLici #16
Interesting point you make there.
I'd like to add that I personally prefer not to play against engines (I played loads of games many years ago against Fritz3 when having internet access was not "normal" yet).
Playing against humans adds the psychology (fun!) part of chess, and humans do make certain mistakes that strong engines don't make. It can be interesting to try to profit from those human mistakes. Apart from that it can be de-motivating to play against strong engines imho.
Here's 2 fresh games where I got advantage in the opening/beginning of the middlegame and eventually converted it into a win :
en.lichess.org/K0vzPBy1/black#30en.lichess.org/1hYGuUGd/white#27 (I blundered later on in this game, but that is not relevant for this topic).
@achja I still can't relate your wins with the openings, the first game showed that white blundered the piece, while the second one showed that black remained too passive from the beginning.
Show me one game where you used only your opening advantage to win the game, a game without blunders or tactics.
@GentjanLici #26
In your original posting you kind of suggest that we could as well skip the meaningless part of the opening. I'm inclined to disagree with that. And ... I think that we are about to end up in an endless discussion :-)
Here is a fresh example where I tried two things :
1) Get an advantage out of the opening
2) Get positions that I like to play and feel comfortable with.
Within 10 moves there's already a +1.1 due to imho an opening advantage.
en.lichess.org/JkGkRR3z/white#17 Well I get it when you want to get an advantage from the opening, but I am shocked when you dedicate your victories to your openings. I know a single pawn is enough to win sometimes, but if your opponents were not playing so bad you wouldn't get an advantage from the opening, or they could turn the game in their favor regardless of the opening. Magnus carlsen doesn't get advantage in the openings but he still outplays others in the phase where a real advantage could count significantly.
If you play closed systems like 1. c4 or 1. d4 , move order in opening and theory is less important. It's more about positional ideas.
If you play 1. e4 or sicilian sharp lines, the move order can be very important to not get into trouble/disadvantage. Someone that doesn't know theory can then get very bad positions.
I usually play e4 and I get standart positions, maybe I'm not playing those strong opponents who would punish me for my ignorance. I'm trying to undertand the importance of openings in higher levels, but as I see it still looks undecisive to me.