There was some chess tutorial going around online that I failed to properly bookmark. The tutorial was premised on the fact that for casual fun games, you shouldn't have to memorize a bunch of strategic openings and instead adopt some of the older methods of playing before everyone memorized everything.
When I was taught by a GM, and the way I teach kids, start a bit different.
-Basic moves and tactics
-Very simple endings (RR+K, then Q+K, finally R+K). Without this, many games between kids just can never even finish!
-Strategy
-Basic opening theory: Nothing memorized to even 5 moves, but evaluation of the first 2 or 3 opening moves in basic lines, built upon the basic chess knowledge we had been taught. This way we avoid very short games that teach little, because white was silly and started with G4, or moved their queen 5 times in a row.
After that, kid's games look like chess: They have a beginning, a middle and an end in a sensible number of moves and many moves are about gaining material. Once we reach that point, we really can start talking about higher level topics. It's only then were openings are left for the end, because understanding things like tension and weak squares is far more useful. Kids probably have played over a hundred games too, so they can also start to see patterns, so they start having to have some intuitions about combinations all by themselves.
I don't know of the specific tutorial you're mentioning, but a good way to avoid memorized opponents is to play the London System as white, and a kingside fianchetto system as black.
In both cases you can play the same moves against virtually any opening and get a solid middlegame position.
It might have been a link to 'Fischer Random' chess. This is played like normal chess but the arrangement of pieces on the back row is random, with some restrictions for game balance.
The random starting position removes the advantage of memorizing openings.
For casual fun games, the opening is completely irrelevant. Just aim to use all your pieces, control the center, keep your king safe and aim at the opponent's.
Does anyone remember this and have a link to it?