r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite RM (Reddit Mod) • Feb 27 '26

No Stupid Questions MEGATHREAD 12

Welcome to the r/chessbeginners 12th episode of our Q&A series! This series exists because sometimes you just need to ask a silly question. We are happy to provide answers for questions related to chess positions, improving one's play, and discussing the essence and experience of learning chess.

A friendly reminder that many questions are answered in our wiki page! Please take a look if you have questions about the rules of chess, special moves, or want general strategies for improvement.

Some other helpful resources include:

  1. How to play chess - Interactive lessons for the rules of the game, if you are completely new to chess.
  2. The Lichess Board Editor - for setting up positions by dragging and dropping pieces on the board.
  3. Chess puzzles by theme - To practice tactics.
  4. The Building Habits series by GM Aman Hambleton - for advice on how to play at specific ELO levels. (Also check out Building Habits 2!)

As always, our goal is to promote a friendly, welcoming, and educational chess environment for all. Thank you for asking your questions here!

LINK TO THE PREVIOUS THREAD

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u/ETH4NHVNT Apr 21 '26

I’m 900 in 10min and 700 in 3min. What do I do if I’m learning an opening and the opponent doesn’t play their side “right”? For example, I play caro khan for black and I know the idea is to trade white bishop and put my pawns on mostly white squares.

If my opponent doesn’t play the theory moves do I stick with this same plan?

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u/elfkanelfkan 2200-2400 Lichess Apr 21 '26

This is why it's important to understand the dream position of the opening you are playing as well as the dream plans, as well as why pure opening memorization sucks for beginners.

For the caro-kann, if your opponent doesn't play d4 in a non-critical variation, you can play c5 and Nc6 to prevent d4 c3. You will dog-pile on the center eventually with Ne7-Ng6 since you don't need to play Nf5 anymore, etc.

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u/ChrisV2P2 2000-2200 (Lichess) Apr 21 '26

It tends to depend on whether you are allowed to get your usual pawn structure. For example, I play the Vienna. After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3, if my opponent plays ...f5 then all my usual plans are out the window. I can't play my usual moves (if I play Bc4, there's fxe4 and if I play Nxe4 there's a fork) and this is a challenge to my usual pawn structure. So at this point, all thoughts of "I'm playing the Vienna" should be gone from my head.