when players of original talent, whom today we would call 'natural' players, predominated
over all others, some unknown genius, with a penchant for collecting information, made
notes of the beginnings of good games, compiled them, classified them and exhibited his
work to a few friends. As a natural consequence, some of the more industrious and intelligent
learners would, in the first dozen moves, overcome superior players of that day, by
employing the tactical manoeuvres gleaned from the manuscript of their compiler friend.
One can imagine the surprise of spectators and the wrath of the defeated masters as the
observed newcomers, without natural talent, waging a strong fight purely with the aid of a
book of compiled information. "
Emanuel Lasker (Lasker's Manual of Chess)
There is a huge amount of literature devoted to chess openings yet despite this
it remains one of the most misunderstood aspects of the game. Many players believe
that they need to memorize countless variations before they play a match or
tournament, but this is far from being the case. A knowledge of principles and
ideas is far more important, especially at amateur level. Indeed, my extensive experience
of working with students has shown that very few club games follow
'theory' for more than a few moves at which point memorization becomes useless.
With the rules in this section I hope to supply some much needed perspective
on this thorny problem of the opening.
1. Aim to reach a playable middle game
The importance of the opening tends to be overestimated, especially at club level.To some extent it might be argued that this is because so many books and DVDs
are available on this stage of the game, but that does not explain why a market for
these products is there in the first place. It seems reasonable to think that this
market has been driven by the fact that opening knowledge presents a convenient
way to rationalize losses ("I didn't know the opening") without the need to blame
overall skill.
Having analysed hundreds of club players' games I've come to believe that
'openings knowledge' as such is rarely responsible for either victory or defeat, not
least because the games rarely follow recognizable 'theory' for more than 5-10
moves. It certainly helps if someone knows the kind of thing they should be doing
in a certain type of position, but this is a far cry from knowing an extensive number
of detailed opening variations.
This argues heavily in favour of players at club level using simple, commonsense
openings from which they know how to handle the middlegame, and indeed
this is how Portisch himself and many other top Grandmasters started their
careers. There will be time enough to sharpen these weapons when a player becomes
a full-time professional. And many players, such as Britain's Michael Adams,
choose to adopt a commonsense approach even then.
