I'm sorry, but systems are stupid

Introduction

Most beginners struggle with openings — well, they struggle with everything, but openings are the most common self-identified issue. They fall for Scholar's Mate, allow some unpleasant e4-e5 in the opening and get their knight kicked back to g8, or blunder in any number of other ways. Chess starts looking like an even scarier and more brutal game than it did before, and some desperately look for catch-all solutions.

And one day, usually from some fool of a YouTuber, they hear two magical words:
system opening.

Openings you can play against absolutely anything! Finally, I'm the one dictating where the game goes! Yes! This is what I've been looking for!

So, what's the problem?

Becoming a stronger player is largely a question of learning a wide variety of ideas, often ones associated with specific pawn structures and piece placements in them, and getting into positions where you're uncomfortable and have to think on your own.

In my opinion, chess knowledge is more granular than many people think: or, a good chunk of our understanding of the game is related to specific patterns, structures, and ideas. There are more general skills like calculation (which is still heavily guided by knowing what to look for in the position) and general guidelines to the game (development is good, durr), so a strong player won't suddenly become a 1200 in Fischer Random, but he will definitely play worse, objectively speaking.

Just listen to top grandmasters talk about the game: every other sentence starts with "In such positions, [...]", and every other with "Typically, in this opening, [...]". Sure, their understanding is incomparably more specialized than a 1400 just trying not to blunder his pieces, but I think everyone can relate to the "Oh, it's this thing again!" experience.

As an aside: the idea that you can just "skip" the opening and "focus on the middlegame" is sort of ridiculous. Middlegame positions come directly from openings, and their character is directly shaped by them, and, again, most thing one can learn about chess are strictly related to a specific structure or opening. The opening phase is just chess! You shouldn't be afraid of it or try to make it go away.

To provide just a couple of examples of the types of small ideas I mentioned above:

Then I'll play the same thing forever!

Couldn't you, then, just play a very limited set of structures forever and understand them better than your opponent? Sure, but there are some pretty significant issues:

1. Objective mediocrity

Most "systems" (or very structurally limited repertoires) make some serious concessions: not reacting to your opponent's moves is unlikely to be the best response to them. With the white pieces you can fool around a bit without ending up in trouble, but you only have to make one passive move to give up the first-move advantage, and with the black pieces you basically won't equalize or might end up simply worse.

2. Preparation

People might wise up to you trying to play the same (or a similar set of) moves every game, making it quite easy for them to also prepare with a specific strategy in mind. You also won't benefit nearly as much from preparation yourself: you're just trying to play the same moves anyway, so what's there to prepare?

3. One-trick pony-ism

You might simply get bored of playing the same structures over and over and over, and where would that leave you? Understanding one specific set of structures quite well, without real understanding and experience of anything else. Sure, people switch repertoires all the time, but usually when going from one healthy and diverse repertoire to another, there will be large amounts of overlap.

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The other point I referred to before is that chess simply isn't a peaceful game, and attempts to dumb it down are sort of contrary to its nature. To stop blundering pieces or checkmate in the opening, you need to blunder time, time, time and time again to slowly teach your brain what not to do.

Also: even if playing systems somehow is the optimal competitive strategy for you (which I doubt), you simply miss out on a lot of the beauty of the game by dumbing it down and trying to get the same sort of game every time. It's very refreshing to find yourself in a new positions that you honestly don't really understand, and you definitely get to experience more "Wow, that's such a cool idea!"-moments when playing with a wider repertoire.

The Opening Triangle

In chess openings, you simply can't have your cake, eat it, and give it to your friend — everything is a question of trade-offs. Especially with the black pieces you can have at most two out of three of the following, and with many openings will have to settle for one and a half:

1. theoretical soundness
2. simplicity
3. excitement

Let's look at some examples of defences to 1.d4:

QGA

Is it sound?

Yes! Black at worst ends up defending a slightly worse endgame.

Is it simple?

Sort of! White has a couple of different setups, but mostly White's good options are playing with e2-e4 and e2-e3. Both have a couple of main branches, but in my opinion nothing too crazy. As far as repertoires simplicity goes, it's up there.

Is it exciting?

No... Well, the e2-e4 lines are tons of fun, but White can kill basically all the fun for Black with the e2-e3 systems. Alternatively you can play some very dubious ideas to get a different kind of game, but obviously then you're losing objectivity.

Semi-Slav

Is it sound?

Yes! Semi-Slav is one of the best defences against 1.d4.

Is it simple?

No! While you can reach the main tabiya of the Semi-Slav from a lot of move orders, White has a fair amount of sidelines on the way, and from there chooses (mostly) between Bg5 and Meran/Anti-Meran lines.

Is it exciting?

Yes! Both the Meran and especially the Bg5 lines are very double-edged.

King's Indian Defence

Is it sound?

Eh, sort of. The engine sort of famously dislikes it, and it's not a frequently seen guest at the top level.

Is it simple?

Yeah, no. White has a bunch of reasonably distinct options, and while there are many shared themes, the positions are quite complicated and Black doesn't have to play too many passive moves to just have a bad position.

Is it exciting?

Absolutely!

Englund Gambit

It is sound?

No...

Is it simple?

White has multiple options, but mostly people go for a couple of specific lines because they're just so good.

Is it exciting?

Maybe? Well, the positions can get hectic, but mostly they're just depressing for Black.

In conclusion...

In short:

• System openings are quite bad for your growth as a player due to the limited number of structures you see. They might make you play better in the very short term, but in the long term will bite you, if you're serious about the game.
• A huge chunk of chess understanding is tied to pawn structures and position types.
• There is no skipping the opening phase, and the sooner you accept that, the better.
• You can't have everything with openings: no opening is optimal and simple to play and exciting.

There probably are some people for whom playing some kind of system opening is a reasonable alternative, but probably the only such group are time-starved casual players with basically no ambitions. For basically everyone else, I really wouldn't recommend them at all.

Thank you for reading!
— Numerot