If you are a beginner, you have probably heard the standard advice: "As Black, play 1.e4 e5, with a standard Italian or Spanish, and 1.d4 d5, playing the QGD against the Queen's Gambit." These principled choices lead to stable yet rich positions where the basic principles will do you very well. It makes a lot of sense... and I did not follow it. Young Smithy did the exact opposite, actually.
I have mostly complete stats from when I was a kid up to the point in the mid-2010s when I started taking chess seriously again. Out of just under 900 Black games, here are the first move breakdowns:
Lots to dive in here (such as I have nearly played more Sicilians than I have against 1.d4 in its totality), but I should start with an immediate caveat: a lot of these games were thematic tournaments. The King's Gambit, the Evans Gambit, the Max Lange, the Albin, a lot of these games started in set positions. I loved playing these wild and open positions, so I signed up every chance I could. I have no easy way of filtering these games out, so here's my best attempt: count how many times I reached the standard Italian (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 and not the Evans or Max Lange) and QGD (1...d5, 2...e6, 3...Nf6 and 4...Be7) positions. These are the results:
The results? I basically never played the standard openings. I have one Italian (where I played 4.d3 f5!?, so not even a standard Italian!), two Spanish (both Berlins), and zero (!) QGD (though I did play the Cambridge Springs, which is a similar structure). In my formative years, where I went from 1300 to 1800 in online correspondence chess, I did not play any of the standard openings.
Here's why.
Big Reason #1: Tarrasch
My main chess resource was Tarrasch's "The Game of Chess." A great book, but the theory was roughly 80 years out of date. I didn't understand that, so I took his pronouncements at face value. He said that the Berlin lead to equality, so I played that. He said the QGD was terrible, so I never played that. He mentioned that the Cambridge Springs was very interesting, so I used that. He said the Tarrasch Defence to the QGD was the best, and I tried that as well.
And what about the Italian? There's two factors at play here. First, again with Tarrasch, he said the Two Knights was just as good but also more combative. I have 11 Two Knights games, but I think a number of those are thematic matches, so hard to say. The second factor leads to our next topic.
Big Reason #2: One-Colour Mentality
I had very strong, black-and-white opinions about each opening. If I liked an opening as White, then that meant it was good for White, and I definitely did not want to play it as Black. This also worked in reverse, any opening I play as Black is something I do not want to face as White.
The QGD is terrible for Black, or so I thought, so I only played it as White. Similarly, I played the Italian as White, which meant I did not want to see it as Black. I would do whatever it takes to avoid that possibility, including, as mentioned above, playing ...f5!? early on, just to move the game into different waters. I played openings with one colour, not two.
Obviously, this shows a pretty poor understanding of the game, but I was a kid. Funnily enough, it didn't seem to haunt me much if at all: I don't remember facing "my" openings as the opposite colour , and a quick database search brought up no results. Certainly in my earliest stages I managed to avoid playing against my own repertoire, so I guess it worked out.
Big Reason #3: Craving Variety
This comes from two sources. First, I have an almost irrational distaste for super-symmetrical positions, such as the following:
Yuck. That position makes me sad. I'm not completely sure where this comes from. I could find no similar positions in my database. Nonetheless, I have always remembered feeling this way. I still feel this way, though with less intensity. I'd much rather play anything but a solid, symmetrical structure.
The second reason is more positive. I'd call it wonder and discovery. Before, I didn't know set openings existed; I just played the same normal moves basically every game. As I discovered that different openings existed, this opened up a whole new world. We could reach completely different positions, with contrasting strengths and weaknesses on both sides and completely different middlegame plans.
I found this intoxicating. Every time I found a new opening, it was like discovering chess for the first time all over again. These positions were always much more interesting, simply because I had no experience with them. I got to make it up as I go.
In case it wasn't clear, I didn't study any of these openings. I learned the first 4 or so moves and then improvised. I frequently joined thematic tournaments without knowing anything about the given opening: I lost every game in a Semi-Tarrasch thematic, with both colours, because I had no idea what I was doing. That was okay, though, because I go to experience some new and interesting structures. The act of discovery mattered more than the results.
Big Reason #4: Rebellion
This is hard to explain, but here goes: I did not want to "follow the crowd" when it came to chess. My mentality was basically, "If all chess players jump off a bridge, would I do that, too?" I wanted to forge my own path.
This feeling still takes hold of me at times. Perhaps you know someone at a chess club who religiously plays his one slightly-off-beat opening. He's the Alekhine guy, or she's the Budapest gal. They've taken these non-main-line options and honed them into impressive weapons. Combine that with their loads of practical experience in these unusual positions and it lets them win a lot of good games. I have always had a feeling of respect, and even fear, for anyone that forges a reputation like this.
"You play the Italian and the Najdorf? Big deal, so does everyone. That guy, though, plays the Albin. He's my hero."
This is a big reason why I didn't play any of the standard openings ... it's precisely because they are standard! I wanted to find my own niche. In the process, I tried just about every opening at least once. Because I never stuck with any one thing, this meant I forged the reputation of "Jack of all trades, master of none", which was not exactly what I was after ... but still better than just blindly following the crowd, I guess.
Was It Worth It?
When I look back at my chess development, this is probably my biggest question mark. On the one hand, my quest for variety exposed me to a wide range of structures and plans. I have focused on Black for this post, but my White results are just as varied. For example, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, I have a near three-way tie between 3.Bb5, 3.Bc4 and 3.d4, and even the Four Knights has a good chunk of games (especially if we include the Petroff transpositions).
Two Undoubted Positives
It made chess more interesting. Discovering these new possibilities renewed my interest in chess, and I dove in with both feet. It is conceivable that had I stuck with the same garden-variety openings in every game, I might have grown bored and moved on. Even today, seeing new plans and ideas in old openings excites me. It helps me come to the board and study more often. Definitely a positive.
It also opened up my creative outlet. It was sink or swim: I didn't study openings, I didn't know much about them, I just put the first few moves on the board and then tried to see what would happen. I played some really interesting games and reached novel positions. This is exactly what I wanted, and it let me explore original ideas. I probably never play 4...f5!? in the Italian these days, but you have to give your creativity a chance to shine. That's what makes chess fun, and I know that many of these failed experiments, so to speak, bore fruit in later games.
Two Concerning Negatives
By never having a set repertoire, with either colour, I never got deep experience in any one structure. As I've studied chess and my understanding has grown, I've seen how deep some of the most common structures can get. Sure, I've played lots of different games in different structures, but it's mostly superficial knowledge. If I played the Carlsbad structure for the last 20 years, I would have deep experience in one of the richest structures around. You can't buy that type of experience. Is that not worth more?
Relatedly, these aren't just any structures, but the most important structures, the Queen's Gambit and the King Pawn games. This is the foundation that all chess understanding is built, and I've largely ignored it. Sure, I have lots of games as White, so it is not nothing, but I know there is a gap here. I can feel it. I recently played a blindfold game against a weak version of Stockfish. We played an Anti-Berlin, and the hardest part wasn't seeing the board, it was figuring out what to do.
White played non-critically. I had a good position and nearly anything should have been fine. Nonetheless, I struggled between different plans and finding my moves. It was far from obvious. If I can't find my way through a simple position against a weak computer, how will I fare in a more complex position against an equal adversary? That's where the lack of understand here, specifically, matters, and that bleeds into the rest of my game.
Conclusion
I've explained why I didn't play any of the standard openings. Looking at these, none of them are particularly good reasons: I'm relying blindly on authority, misunderstanding chess, seeking variety over improvement and showing off a rebellious streak. They are the only reasons I've got, though.
Was it worth it? Would I do it again? If I had a time machine, I think I'd change it. First, I would tell Young Smithy the lottery numbers (obviously). Then I'd tell him he can play whatever openings he wants 50% of the time, but the other 50% have to be the QGD and 1.e4 e5 structures. Maybe raise that to 80%. The exact percentage is open for debate, but the general theme, that learning these structures is important, remains.
I wouldn't call this a regret, but it's definitely a big "What if?" in my chess development.
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