My Road to Master, Part 4 - More Chess Repertoire Building!

I woke up this morning, still thinking about my blog post from yesterday and how glad I was that I sunk my teeth into quite a lot of work. Writing the first part of how I built my chess repertoire actually didn't feel taxing - on the contrary! I was happily suprised with the work I put into the chess diagrams, and to be completely honest I even stumbled upon some new insights to my own play while putting all the variations and lines in place. 

Anyway, I digress. Let's get the show on the road... I finished yesterday's post with my chess repertoire for the White pieces. It would only make sense to take a look at what I've got (thus far) for Black, wouldn't it? 

Part One - Playing as Black against [ 1. d4 ... ]

Same thought bubble and thought proces as last time. I'm sitting at home, cold one on the couch next to me and my chess notes on the other side. By now, I've fiddled around quite extensively with the White pieces and my brain's absorbed a few good positions and the plays I have to make to reach those positions. Now, I sweep all the pieces from the chess board, turn the board around and put myself in Black's shoes. I stare down at the White pawns, readily reaching out to the e-pawn to make the move [ 1. d4 ... ]. I take a deep breath, grab my pencil and start thinking: How to respond? 

Reflecting on my thoughts from creating a repertoire for White, I didn't want to reply with [ 1. ... d5 ]. I didn't like playing a Closed Game from White's perspective, and I certainly didn't like playing it from Black's position either. So, I grabbed my computer and started searching for alternative moves for Black to make.... which resulted in two types of play! 

• "The Indian Defense(s)" [ 1. d4 Nf6 ]

I stumbled across the hypermodern strategy of bringing out your King's Knight to f6, controlling the central squares e4 and d5, and grew fond of the idea. I did, however, immediately scrapped a few options within the section of Indian Defenses, namely those which employed c5, d5 or e5 within the first three moves. I quite enjoy the idea of playing against d4 without directly staking a claim within the centre with any of the central pawns (or the flank pawn), seeing as I already started with whipping out a Knight (in true hypermodern style). The first Indian Defense which remained was the "King's Indian Defense", which plays for fianchettoing your dark-squared Bishop to g7 early. The second one was called the "Queen's Indian Defense", which employed a similar strategy as the King's Indian, involved a fianchetto with your light-squared Bishop on b7. It's the play I whip out whenever White chooses to play his Knight to f3 instead of first bringing out his Knight to c3. The last one was called the "Nimzo-Indian Defense", which opts to pin White's Knight on c3 by playing your Bishop to b4. I'll cover both the Nimzo-Indian as the Queen's Indian in seperate diagrams below one another. 

The Nimzo-Indian Defense

The Queen's Indian Defense

* As an interesting side-note... I occasionally play "The Dutch Defense", which is reached through [1. d4 f5 ], for fun's sake. But I've yet to fully commit to learning the right stuff about that defense. 

Part Two - Playing as Black against [ 1. e4 ... ]

Moving on to e4. Although I enjoyed the White side of the Open Game, I didn't fully appreciate being on Black's side. I started reasoning which reply to choose. "The French" perhaps, the defense I found so pesky? "The Sicilian"... no, no, I would postpone that untill I could properly learn it. "The Caro-Kann"? "Alekhine's Defense"? 

In the previous article, I mentioned I wanted to play what I liked to play, not what was best to play. And it so happened that my eye caught a rather unusual defense. Something modern, something different. I can almost hear you say it.... Alekhine's Defense! Although true, it is modern and different, I didn't pick Alekhine's Defense, even though I have a huge soft spot for it. No, I picked "The Pirc Defense"! It's relatively new, it's unusual but sound enough to be played and it's hella suprising for e4 players! Black concedes centre control with his pawns early on and opts for quick development, followed by counter-attacking later on in the game. I'm still learning it, but here are my repertoire studies thus far on the Pirc (and champs, that's 'peerts' and not 'pirk'!) 

The Pirc Defense [ 1. e4 d6 ]