I’ve heard lots of chess content creators make claims like ‘you don’t need to study openings until like 1600 elo. You don’t lose games because of a slightly losing opening, you lose because you still blunder your queen.’ I kind of get it, but if it was ever good advice, it’s at the very least outdated now. At 1100, the first thing I see in sooo many games is some sort of scholar’s mate-esque opening trap and if I don’t blunder outright, I often need to burn a minute or two to evaluate all my options while my opponent clearly knows the flowchart of the opening. It’s a big disadvantage.
I’ve heard lots of chess content creators make claims like ‘you don’t need to study openings until like 1600 elo. You don’t lose games because of a slightly losing opening, you lose because you still blunder your queen.’ I kind of get it, but if it was ever good advice, it’s at the very least outdated now. At 1100, the first thing I see in sooo many games is some sort of scholar’s mate-esque opening trap and if I don’t blunder outright, I often need to burn a minute or two to evaluate all my options while my opponent clearly knows the flowchart of the opening. It’s a big disadvantage.