The Chessbug Opening Repertoire

Part One

The Guiding Principles 

One of the eternal questions of chess players, in all levels, is, “What will be my opening repertoire?” Towards the New Year, 2008, we at Chessbug decided to start a project that will eventually suggest to our readers a full opening repertoire for both White and Black. This repertoire was carved for the needs of amateur players, from beginners to those who have ELO rating of 2000. This repertoire may be stretched until 2200 but above that level it will probably be a hindrance to your development. But for those of us who are young (at least at heart) this repertoire promises hundreds of enjoying games, attacks, sacrifices, combinations and other thrills.

Here are the principles that guided us in choosing the repertoire:

1. We choose sidelines over mainlines - you probably have heard the cliché, “mainlines are mainlines for a reason” and the reason is that, OBJECTIVELY speaking, mainlines bring better positions to those who play them than do sidelines. However this reason, which is good enough for professional players, is offset by other factors when amateur players are concerned:

* chessbug@chessbug.com

a. Sidelines are Easier to Learn

When you learn a new opening you need some understanding of why the moves that “theory” recommends are recommended, what was the history of the opening, why certain moves that seem natural are not played and why other moves, which seem against the principles, are actually the best moves and so on. Mainlines by their nature, have more history and longer “theoretical” lines that have to be understood before you start playing successfully (for example certain mainlines in the Ruy Lopez or the Slav go easily to move 20). Moreover, professionals don’t play certain lines (for example the Danish Gambit) because these lines do not contain enough ideas for them and they are afraid that too many of their games will end in a draw. For amateurs, however, the minor openings give a chance to understand what they are doing instead of “drowning” in an over-complex opening. Once you feel the old gambits are too simple for you, the road is open to move to the Ruy Lopez and playing against Petroff’s Defence.

b. Low maintenance

When you play mainlines, theory’s recommendations change much faster. You have to keep updated with the latest games of the world's top 10 players to know where theory stands now. This is a lot of work that does not really improve your chess understanding but rather your ability to imitate the ideas of others. Furthermore, weekly update of your repertoire is part of the chess professionals’ job but is not necessarily the most enjoying part of the game.

c. Get to “our” positions rather than to the opponents’ positions

When your opponent plays 1 d4 he is usually answered with 1…d5 or 1…Nf6. If you answer with a different move (as we will suggest in one of our next columns) you immediately arrive at a position that you play any time you play against 1 d4 while your opponent is playing a position he hardly ever plays. Between amateurs familiarity with a position is much more important than the “objective” evaluation of the position.

d. “Survival” over “maximization”

Professional players try to maximize the result of the opening, that is they try to get an advantage with white and equalize with black. We would suggest that for amateurs, in contrast with grandmasters, survival is more important than maximization. Between amateurs, it does not matter if white has a +0.5 after 10 moves or if the position is equal as the advantage may change hands a few more times before the end of the game. It is thus more practical for a players under 2000 to play a sideline when they are still “in the game” after the opening rather than fall pray to an opening trap once in every 4-5 games playing mainlines they do not really have command of. 

e. Sidelines but not Suicidelines

We are playing sidelines but not those that will bring you to a lost position if the opponent plays correctly the openings moves. This rule is important mostly in the black side of the repertoire. We will not suggest lines such as the Blackburne-Hartlaub gambit (1 d4 e5 2 dxe5 d6) that can be mastered pretty easily by your opponents. We suggest a repertoire that you may play for a few years. Truly, if you meet Anand he will probably know how to refute your gambits but we guess you and Anand don’t meet weekly at your local chess club.

2. We prefer imbalanced positions over balanced positions - the simple reason is that imbalanced positions are more interesting and less drawish. It is not that a position after 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 exd5 exd5 is a draw between two amateurs – far from that. It is only that unsymmetrical pawn structures and imbalanced material promote more “fire” on the board. Amateurs may win or lose the same number of games with the “solid” openings as with the “wilder” openings but they will have more fun in the dangerous territory. Furthermore, the advantage of the player who knows the position is more noticeable in an imbalanced position than in a symmetrical position.

3. We are happy to sacrifice in order to get the attack (especially as White) - this is quite similar to the previous guiding principle - Sacrificing material is only a specific case of creating imbalances. Still, the question of playing gambits deserves a special attention. For many amateurs, once the opponent sacrificed a pawn, it is time to defend. That is why by being the first to sacrifice you become the one who sets the tone of the game, the attacker and the initiator. Your opponent, on the other hand, feels that a tactical blow is looming above his head and starts seeing “ghosts,” that is he capitulates to threats that are not really dangerous.

4. We choose a repertoire that is covered by good opening books – for practical reasons it is clear that most of the work, at least in the first stages of learning an opening, is made using a book. If the book is not good, you will loose too many games, become frustrated with the opening and leave it. For example, at first we tried to base our repertoire as White on Zenon Franco's book about the English Opening but there were too many lines he did not cover and we gave up on the English despite it being objectively sounder than the opening repertoire we advocate for White.

5. We choose a repertoire that does not demand too many books – the reasons are, again, practical. Less books mean spending less time and less money. After all we read opening books in order to play chess and not the other way around. We offer a repertoire that is based on one book for White and three books for Black (although you may start with only two of the three for a repertoire against 1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4 and 1 Nf3). The way to do it is first by choosing books that cover a lot of  material and second by choosing a repertoire where the lines can transpose to each other, thus narrowing down the number of opening books that have to be studied. We will explain this more when we talk about the repertoire for Black.

In short, we offer you a repertoire that will bring you highly interesting and sharp yet playable positions without having to keep up with theory development and without spending too much money or time. Feeling ready to set the chess board on fire? Dive into our suggested opening repertoire for Black. (Coming soon)

Written by Alex Furman and Moshe Rachmuth