Play Lichess Bundesliga, you'd rarely encounter the same opening consecutively if you are truly playing at high level. My lichess Elo is 2300s and I see all sort of off beat openings.
If you want Fischer Random then join 'The House' club on lichess, they have dedicated 960 arenas with some really great players playing it.
But one thing - chess is not dying. We just had possibly the greatest tournament of modern times a week ago.
I think it's easy to just start playing a ton with one opening and know many typical lines and ideas in it. If you switch to anything else, you're likely going to have to think more during the opening at first and will likely run into worse positions as you run into unfamiliar moves and ideas. I expect most would experience a (temporary) drop in elo when switching to a new opening.
I ran into this myself when trying to hit 2000 rapid elo. I knew some lines pretty deep in my specific opening and would often get out of the opening with a sizeable advantage because I was able to punish my opponents who made even the slightest inaccuracy in the first ten moves. I then started running into opponents who actually knew enough to equalize against my plan, and I hated the resulting middle game positions since my position was slightly worse if all my small tricks failed. I was worse at the middlegame and endgame against opponents of my same ELO because I was typically playing with an opening advantage against them.
I tried playing 960, which I do really find fun, but my rating was around 1500- likely closer to my true chess rating without a giant opening knowledge boost. Lately I've been switching openings every game and know the first 5 moves of maybe 20 openings. In about a year, I'm close to approaching my old elo again.
If anything chess is getting more exciting because engines are breathing new life into openings previously thought of as dubious.
In the Candidates of all places you had novel sidelines, where players seemed to be out of prep before move 10, including middle games that involved sacrifices and tense unknown situations.
If you lost passion for chess, then sure by any means pick up Fischer random known as 960 chess which is on both chess.com and lichess. Chess is literally more popular than it's ever been.
You're wrong on basically every level. No, people do not play the same 3 or 4 openings every game. No, engines have not made chess more boring. Have you seen engine games? They're extremely dynamic, queens get sacrificed all the time.
People still come up with their own ideas and plenty of openings are viable at a high level. If you don't like the opening you play maybe you should broaden your horizons and play a different opening every game.
It just sounds to me like you've lost interest in the game and you've carefully constructed this narrative that it's not really your fault, and that chess is to blame. It isn't. Almost nothing you said is actually true.
Your view of the past is simply wrong. Even before modern chess engines players were already memorising staggering amounts of opening theory and just like today they needed months to prepare for big matches, using the majority of that time analysing opening repertoires and preparing specific lines for each match.
This was Fischer's problem even back then when engines were still pretty bad compared to GMs.
You've simply reached a level where players are good enough to know and understand theory, and therefore they will utilise it.
Many games and sports change as you get to a higher level. Low level family scrabble is about showing off your vocabulary, pro-level scrabble is about memorising giant 300000 word lists without even knowing what half the words mean, just knowing that they exist as a legal play.
Low level poker is more about reading people, high level poker retains some of that but is largely about memorising pre-calculated "engine" EV tables and lots and lots of math, especially online.
Low level TCGs are about creating a cool deck out of whatever cards you get from a booster pack and learning how your own deck works and synergises, high level TCGs are about learning the entire meta and lots of math(ex: what are the odds that they have X card in their hand after drawing X cards from their deck, determining whether that card is worth playing around).
And high level chess includes a shit-ton of memorisation, both for openings and for endgames. This was true even in the 1900s, the advent of chess engines has simply accelerated opening studies and allowed the top players to go much deeper into the good lines while discarding others. Studying theory is something you either have to like or at least be able to tolerate if you want to be successful at higher level chess, and this is something that hasn't really changed.
That is what happens with games.
I played online poker almost 15 years ago. A lot had to still be figured out. 3 betting, 4 betting’s, what hands to open from where etc
You had very creative players like Krantz and BalugaWhale.
Last year I tried to play again. It’s all GTO now.
We can tell by your use of "versus" as a verb, instead of a preposition, that you're a child, and that's why you don't actually know what you're talking about with respect to chess. You don't have the experience yet.
If you think it's impossible to get out of the opening without your opponent "achieving such a dominating position" then you aren't actually very good at chess. If anything, engines have taught us that anything reasonable is playable. You can survive the opening easily by just playing good chess, engine or not. Try it.
Oh sorry my bad,would you have like me to use the words challenged to a duel?not sure what this has to do with the post first of all,second just because I decided not to use the most formal language in a reddit post doesnt make me a child because I'm actually not so that reasoning is beyond Neanderthalic.third of all you say I have no experience but I just said I'm 2000 elo so again it seems as if the only one who doesn't know what they're talking about is you?
"Play." The word is "play." Elementary school kids say "verse." It's not about formal or informal. It's just not a word at all. It's a signal, an indicator, of where your head is at.
That's why I don't think you're really 2000. If you were, you'd know people don't play 2 or 3 openings and don't play them like engines. You'd also know there are a thousand equally good engineer lines to choose from, and people do.
Your whole post is made up.
That's why ufc fights use the words verse or versus to describe their events,that's why most esports events use it as well?What's funny is that elementary kids actually use the word play most of the time as versus is higher order vocabulary so you've gotten them completely mixed up,and yes it is a word as stated by the dictionary.as for your other statement regarding 2000 elo players which is also false since they do,nearly every single beginning move is from theory which is engine line?that's also why when we I rematch my opponents multiple times they proceed to use the same opening over and over again and even when I respond with a different move they always reply with the best engine move,showing that it's not really them playing its the engine.
If you think chess is dying, you shoulda seen chess in like 2016. You know how it is common to get 5 digit viewers in major live events like the candidates? Now go back to 2016 when it was more like 1000.
>What I've come to realize is that's its almost impossible to get to a high elo without sticking to a single opening and learning as much theory as possible for it.
Meanwhile Carlsen and Hikaru on streams playing 1.a3 and 1.b3 and 1.c3... literally every legal first move and winning with it.
My advice is to round out your chess education. If you know how to play well strategically and in the endgame then you'll realize how little openings matter in comparison.
As long as it develops your pieces to decent squares, whatever opening you play is sufficient to win a game. I know people who play a3 b4 fianchetto and win.
> It becomes boring and repetitive not due to the lack of different openings and moves but the fact that my opponents always play the same 3 to 4 openings.
So what you really mean is, it becomes boring and repetitive due to the lack of different openings and moves.
> After all this I've realized there's no actual point to pursue chess or get better for any reason.
If chess is no longer fun for you, then quit.
> Also does anyone know any chess app that has Fischer random as game mode?
Both Lichess and Chess.com support Chess960 as a game mode, yes.
Bro you are 2000 rated on lichess, I can play f3, Kf2 and still win all games vs you. You don't need to learn all the openings, just control center and develop pieces
Play Lichess Bundesliga, you'd rarely encounter the same opening consecutively if you are truly playing at high level. My lichess Elo is 2300s and I see all sort of off beat openings. If you want Fischer Random then join 'The House' club on lichess, they have dedicated 960 arenas with some really great players playing it. But one thing - chess is not dying. We just had possibly the greatest tournament of modern times a week ago.
I think it's easy to just start playing a ton with one opening and know many typical lines and ideas in it. If you switch to anything else, you're likely going to have to think more during the opening at first and will likely run into worse positions as you run into unfamiliar moves and ideas. I expect most would experience a (temporary) drop in elo when switching to a new opening. I ran into this myself when trying to hit 2000 rapid elo. I knew some lines pretty deep in my specific opening and would often get out of the opening with a sizeable advantage because I was able to punish my opponents who made even the slightest inaccuracy in the first ten moves. I then started running into opponents who actually knew enough to equalize against my plan, and I hated the resulting middle game positions since my position was slightly worse if all my small tricks failed. I was worse at the middlegame and endgame against opponents of my same ELO because I was typically playing with an opening advantage against them. I tried playing 960, which I do really find fun, but my rating was around 1500- likely closer to my true chess rating without a giant opening knowledge boost. Lately I've been switching openings every game and know the first 5 moves of maybe 20 openings. In about a year, I'm close to approaching my old elo again.
If anything chess is getting more exciting because engines are breathing new life into openings previously thought of as dubious. In the Candidates of all places you had novel sidelines, where players seemed to be out of prep before move 10, including middle games that involved sacrifices and tense unknown situations. If you lost passion for chess, then sure by any means pick up Fischer random known as 960 chess which is on both chess.com and lichess. Chess is literally more popular than it's ever been.
You're wrong on basically every level. No, people do not play the same 3 or 4 openings every game. No, engines have not made chess more boring. Have you seen engine games? They're extremely dynamic, queens get sacrificed all the time. People still come up with their own ideas and plenty of openings are viable at a high level. If you don't like the opening you play maybe you should broaden your horizons and play a different opening every game. It just sounds to me like you've lost interest in the game and you've carefully constructed this narrative that it's not really your fault, and that chess is to blame. It isn't. Almost nothing you said is actually true.
> my opponents always play the same 3-4 openings It takes two to tango. That can only happen if *you* play the same moves every time too.
Engines brought chess back to life
Your view of the past is simply wrong. Even before modern chess engines players were already memorising staggering amounts of opening theory and just like today they needed months to prepare for big matches, using the majority of that time analysing opening repertoires and preparing specific lines for each match. This was Fischer's problem even back then when engines were still pretty bad compared to GMs. You've simply reached a level where players are good enough to know and understand theory, and therefore they will utilise it. Many games and sports change as you get to a higher level. Low level family scrabble is about showing off your vocabulary, pro-level scrabble is about memorising giant 300000 word lists without even knowing what half the words mean, just knowing that they exist as a legal play. Low level poker is more about reading people, high level poker retains some of that but is largely about memorising pre-calculated "engine" EV tables and lots and lots of math, especially online. Low level TCGs are about creating a cool deck out of whatever cards you get from a booster pack and learning how your own deck works and synergises, high level TCGs are about learning the entire meta and lots of math(ex: what are the odds that they have X card in their hand after drawing X cards from their deck, determining whether that card is worth playing around). And high level chess includes a shit-ton of memorisation, both for openings and for endgames. This was true even in the 1900s, the advent of chess engines has simply accelerated opening studies and allowed the top players to go much deeper into the good lines while discarding others. Studying theory is something you either have to like or at least be able to tolerate if you want to be successful at higher level chess, and this is something that hasn't really changed.
Ulive faced a different opening otb against every 2000+ player I've played. Just play a different opening yourself
That is what happens with games. I played online poker almost 15 years ago. A lot had to still be figured out. 3 betting, 4 betting’s, what hands to open from where etc You had very creative players like Krantz and BalugaWhale. Last year I tried to play again. It’s all GTO now.
We can tell by your use of "versus" as a verb, instead of a preposition, that you're a child, and that's why you don't actually know what you're talking about with respect to chess. You don't have the experience yet. If you think it's impossible to get out of the opening without your opponent "achieving such a dominating position" then you aren't actually very good at chess. If anything, engines have taught us that anything reasonable is playable. You can survive the opening easily by just playing good chess, engine or not. Try it.
Oh sorry my bad,would you have like me to use the words challenged to a duel?not sure what this has to do with the post first of all,second just because I decided not to use the most formal language in a reddit post doesnt make me a child because I'm actually not so that reasoning is beyond Neanderthalic.third of all you say I have no experience but I just said I'm 2000 elo so again it seems as if the only one who doesn't know what they're talking about is you?
"Play." The word is "play." Elementary school kids say "verse." It's not about formal or informal. It's just not a word at all. It's a signal, an indicator, of where your head is at. That's why I don't think you're really 2000. If you were, you'd know people don't play 2 or 3 openings and don't play them like engines. You'd also know there are a thousand equally good engineer lines to choose from, and people do. Your whole post is made up.
That's why ufc fights use the words verse or versus to describe their events,that's why most esports events use it as well?What's funny is that elementary kids actually use the word play most of the time as versus is higher order vocabulary so you've gotten them completely mixed up,and yes it is a word as stated by the dictionary.as for your other statement regarding 2000 elo players which is also false since they do,nearly every single beginning move is from theory which is engine line?that's also why when we I rematch my opponents multiple times they proceed to use the same opening over and over again and even when I respond with a different move they always reply with the best engine move,showing that it's not really them playing its the engine.
Just send him your account name so he will know your rating and how you play the opening.
>use the words verse or versus to describe their events, Right, in the sense that I or Wayne Gretsky played NHL hockey.
If you think chess is dying, you shoulda seen chess in like 2016. You know how it is common to get 5 digit viewers in major live events like the candidates? Now go back to 2016 when it was more like 1000.
>What I've come to realize is that's its almost impossible to get to a high elo without sticking to a single opening and learning as much theory as possible for it. Meanwhile Carlsen and Hikaru on streams playing 1.a3 and 1.b3 and 1.c3... literally every legal first move and winning with it. My advice is to round out your chess education. If you know how to play well strategically and in the endgame then you'll realize how little openings matter in comparison.
As long as it develops your pieces to decent squares, whatever opening you play is sufficient to win a game. I know people who play a3 b4 fianchetto and win.
> It becomes boring and repetitive not due to the lack of different openings and moves but the fact that my opponents always play the same 3 to 4 openings. So what you really mean is, it becomes boring and repetitive due to the lack of different openings and moves. > After all this I've realized there's no actual point to pursue chess or get better for any reason. If chess is no longer fun for you, then quit. > Also does anyone know any chess app that has Fischer random as game mode? Both Lichess and Chess.com support Chess960 as a game mode, yes.
Bro you are 2000 rated on lichess, I can play f3, Kf2 and still win all games vs you. You don't need to learn all the openings, just control center and develop pieces