Is it better to memorize openings or to simply rely on personal intict and improve that?

Question

While answering this question, I started to wonder is it even better to memorize openings or to simply rely on personal instinct and improve that? As in is relying on your instinct better than memorizing a set of moves? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

Both are necessary skills to play chess at a high level.

Memory won't take you far if you don't actually understand what you're doing. At some point in every game your opponent will play a move you haven't studied and you'll need to be ready to react.

On the other hand, if you have great skills at tactics and strategy you can become a decent chess player, but knowing opening theory would make you a better one. There's no point in trying to re-invent the wheel in every game when you can easily commit to memory the liens that occur most frequently in your games and be sure you'll get an acceptable position every time.

Still, it's true that if you are a strong chess players you'll easily be able to remember the best moves in the lines you're playing all the time and opening study will become a less demanding task. Doing it the other way around is harder, as having memorized a lot of opening lines won't necessarely make you much better at understanding chess as a whole.

Answer 2

This is no black-and-white issue, but rather one "of order". I'm speaking with personal experience of decades, myself and as a trainer. I have become a FM with essentially zero knowledge of opening theory. But people keep bitching that with it I would be GM now :-)

As a trainer, I strongly recommend: Teaching your kiddies opening theory very early, especially opening traps, will bring in fast success - and block their development. Other trainers regularly hired me to play matches against their talents. I threw them out of theory and then it showed who was really good (i.e., plays good chess outside their comfort zone).

Thus, first get a feeling of general opening principles and piece coordination etc., then see what your playing style is and which openings suit you, and only then memorize a concrete repertoire (good luck memorizing the whole of opening theory...).

Note computers here as usual have been something of a game changer. Today you can simply let the computer win the game against me in your attic and then just play out the memorized moves on the board. My unpredictability is very predictable...