smrex13 wrote on 04/22/08 at 01:42:08:
My opponents have spent thousands of hours honing their opening traps. Of course, they play 'unsound' openings, but they are openings that can't be found in any opening book.
Yes they can. Indeed, if there's one area of opening theory where dubious lines really have been investigated, it's 1.e4 e5.
One reason why I play open games is that many club players like to play these openings. Good, let them! If they were sound, they wouldn't be obscure. As they're not sound, they can be refuted. You don't have to know them all in order to do this - you just need experience in playing against them and you need to keep your head and not assume either:
(a) that your opponent is winning just because thy have an attack ;
(b) that your opponent has vast knowledge or indeed experience of the line they're playing.
Indeed, given that they're probably playing these variations in order to evade the work that comes in studying the main lines - and that your opponents are not, I suspect, professional players - you can probably be pretty confident about (b).
Yes, you will lose some games at first through unfamilarity with the strength or weakness of certain ideas,
just as you would in any other opening. I did, too (and I won't claim I'll never lose to an obscure line again!) but I did what everybody needs to do - study the game afterwards, play around with the pieces, find a better idea, learn.
You don't, actually, ned to memorise everything - or, indeed, very much. You
do need to do some work but the most important thing is to have faith in the soundness of your position and in your ability to play it.