Off beat or Mainline?

[Gavin Strachan]

In a day and age of lots of easy to access chess theory is it best to play off-beat lines that maybe lead to not great positions and hope to outplay opponents in the Middle/End game or play mainline opening theory? Does you are playing someone with a much higher/lower/similar grade affect your decision or would you always play the same way?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I vote for "mix it up; do whichever is appropriate for the game".

[Paul Dargan]

A fence sitting reply of it depends...on opponent's strength, your view of their level of theory, your propensity for time trouble and theirs, etc. etc..

Indeed sometimes I churn out 20+ moves of theory - other times we're both on our own from move 5 or 6

Paul

[Robert Jurjevic]

Already for more than a year I'm trying to remember and understand a few main variations in about 14 openings in my opening repertoire. If I could remember the variation I would play it. The stronger my opponent the more scared I am. I found that stronger opponents follow the book more than say opponents on my level. I'm 99 in 06/07 (and I think that I will be below 80 in 07/08, although my impression was that I improved in chess in 2007).

[Kevin Sawers]

Off-beat might be useful if you're playing someone who's likely to have more openings knowledge than you - so you at least get into a decent middlegame.

But in my own experience, spending a bit of time on some main-line openings does give a more rounded chess knowledge. In my first year of serious chess I've focused on the Sicilian, King's Indian and 2 Knights'/Evans Gambit and it's been good. I seem to have got good positions out of the openings in most of my games, even against higher-graded players.

Mind you, it's so easy to spend all my chess study time on openings and ignore the rest of the game! Bad mistake, in my opinion.

[Charles W. Wood]

I like going Off Beat in the Pirc and the KID. I love watching higher graded players panic. I've chin a couple too.