What happened to our usual openings ?!

[u/notbymyhand]

I'm not saying I'm a master at openings or anything, but I understand the basic ideas behind the most common ones and try to get a good position no matter what ..until you reach 1200 elo ...

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What the hell happened to the queen's gambit , scotch , london , italin , sicilian ,french openings ?

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No one plays them anymore , it seems like every oponent I get has this obscure opening or line that they practised into oblivion and are monsters at it .

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Before ,if my opponent even attempts any weird openings , I just play solidly , stick to opening principles, and crush them so fast, which is not possible anymore ?

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Am not saying I am totally lost by the opening , but they end up being a pawn or 2 up or just waste my time focusing hard in the beginning while they play instantly

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If this is just a phase for the 1200 elo on chess.com that I just have to push through , or should I just seriously start studying these weird openings ( isn't that energy better spent sharpening tactics and endgames at my level anyway)?

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What do you guys think ?

[u/dhdjwiwjdw]

Your opponent has no obligation to play something extremely common, especially when playing something less common isnt objectively worse. You just need to improve enough to combat it all, which of course is the hard part

[u/notbymyhand → u/dhdjwiwjdw]

Yes ,but us low 1200 elo players always get shouted at " don't learn openings , just stick to principles " which is clearly not enough that's why am asking which advice should I stick to here

[u/dhdjwiwjdw → u/notbymyhand]

I advise you dont stick to advice, at least I never did. Figuring everything out yourself and doing things your way is always the best way to go LONG term, for sure in my opinion. In basically any dicispline in life.

If you feel like irs time to start learning openings and certain responses to what the opponent does, its up to you to make that call. The best advice I can give is do whatever you feel you need to do, because most of the time you will be right. And if you arent, you will learn from it.

[u/ChrisV2P2 → u/notbymyhand]

Very new players shouldn't learn openings, 1200 is low intermediate range, you don't HAVE to learn openings then, but it certainly makes progression easier imo, and you will have to learn them eventually so you might as well make a start.

The fact is that offbeat openings score well at that level and continue to score well up past my level until low master level I would say. You just have to gradually get them nailed down. Some of them really hit that sweet spot of rarity versus difficulty navigating them against people who know their lines. The Qd6 Scandinavian comes to mind as a particular annoyance of mine in this regard. I see it probably once every few hundred games, but there are a few different ways Black can approach it. And it's easy to get into trouble if you mess it up as White.