My Opening Repertoire. Playing White. (Sep-2023)

I decided to resume my Opening Repertoire since few people are curious and I don't want to explain it everytime. So if they ask me in the future I will just link them to this post, Playing with White and the next one, Playing with Black.

PLAYING WHITE

Always 1.e4 (best by test).  Seriously I think they are two kind of chess players. A minority of attacking players and the inmense majority of the rest. I think for the former 1.e4 is almost a must, but not as a rule of thumb. E.eg. Kasparov in his beginnings played a lot 1.d4 but as he matured he swift to 1.e4. Nowadays players like Nepomniatchi and Caruana are basically 1.e4 players. 

Replies to 1.e4

Sicilian 1...c5

It's curious but on my level online many play the Sicilian, probably the most famous opening. Who hasn't heared of the Najdorf? But then when you go OTB you scarcely see a Sicilian. The guys are afraid to play such a complex and risky opening and they go basically with the French (1....e6), the Caro-Kann (1...c6) and the King Pawn opening, (1....e5). Other sidelines can also  be seen in tournament play. I am thinking of the Scandinavian (1...d5),  the Modern/Pirc (g6 and d6 no matter the order)) even the Pasman-Borg (1...g5) that recently Magnus brought to life in one of his opening jokes. 

King Pawn Opening (1...e5)

This is a wide tree with many branches. Even most gambits belong to this tree (I am thinking of the Evans gambit, the King gambit and others less known as the Danish gambit, the Latvian gambit or the Elephant gambit. And more. 

Ok. after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 is the most natural move, attacking e5 pawn and the most natural defence is 2...Nc6. Other favoured options at all levels including the top players belonging to the so called Elite, is 2...Nf6 counter attacking the e4 pawn, is a very solid opening called the Petroff (a.k.a. Russian opening).  The Philidor (2...d6) defending e5 with a pawn) is a rare option that very few play but not completely unsound, although offers very little advantages compared with 2....Nc6 or 2...Nf6), and mostly has the purpose to take your opponent out of the book, safely. The Elite doesn't play the Philidor even in Blitz. With this I think it's all said about this opening.

Well, as an intermmediate amateur that's what I am, I must confess nobody has ever played me the Petroff (thanks God) so we must center to the most common 1.e4  e5  2. Nf3  Nc6  and here there are diverse options, mainly the most played and favoured by the GMs, the Ruy Lopez (a.k.a.Spanish opening) with 3.Bb5, the Italian (a.k.a.Giuoco Piano) with 3.Bc4, the Scotch with 3.d4,  the Ponziani with 3.c3, (this is played by a minority if something) and others. 

As the most played, the Ruy Lopez, is a tough positional opening with loads of theory, we will move on to the Italian (Giuoco Piano).  So we have, 1.e4 e5  2.Nf3  Nc6   3. Bc4  and here black has two main options:

a. 3....Bc5 that we will meet with the Evans gambit 4. b4!  

b. 3...Nf6 the most played Two Knights defence.  This is really a difficult nut to crack. Here white has basically two options:

         b.1.  4.Ng5!? aiming for the Fried Liver attack. But now only club players or post-beginners fall for the FL. You just have to remember that 4.Ng5 is met by 4....d5!  5. exd5 and now, instead of falling for the FL with 5...Nxd5? you must attack the bishop with 5...Na5! and everything is ok for black.

        b.2.  4.d3  This is the most favoured continuation in our engine era. After 3....Nf6 white defends e4 with d3, is something like an inverse Philidor, with the difference that the Bc4 is already out of the pawn chain so d3 doesn't block anything.  This line is the only that should be called Giuoco Piano, because in Italian means Slow Game and the Evans gambit, e.eg., is not precisely a slow positional opening. Back to 4.d3  here, as in the Ruy Lopez, white aims with a solid d4 after the moves d3-c3-d4. Very slow, no? This is whites strongest continuation and what the Elite mainly plays.  

Well, the engines ratified what we already suspected: chess is a positional struggle and the natural outcome is a draw.

As the Giuoco Piano doesn't relief our mood let's move to the next opening, once analyzed the Italian.

The Scotch. Here white aims for something more dynamic than the Ruy Lopez or the Italian and the move that defines the Scotch is 3.d4. So the sequence is: 1.e4  e5  2.Nf3  Nc6  3. d4 and now black could play many things but only one move is right:  3....exd4. Now white has the main line in the Scotch that is 4.Nxd4 and black can answer with several moves. The most played is 4...Nf6 where white must take 5.Nxc6  bxc6 and this position has been played many times since Garry Kasparov took the dust off the Scotch and displayed it in his 1990 WC match against Karpov. 

Alternative to the Scotch main line. The Scotch gambit. The Scotch is an opening that gives white a lot of space to maneuver her pieces but a mixture of the Scotch and the Italian is possible and is called Scotch gambit. The difference is in move 4. So we have: 1.e4  e5  2.Nf3  Nc6  3.d4  exd4  4,Bc4!?  You see? Again the LSB is taken out quickly pointing at f7. 

But when playing the Italian we had the chance to play the beautiful Evans gambit with the Scotch we don't have this chance so I thought: why decline the chance of playing the Evans gambit because the Two Knight defence with 4.Ng5 it turned to be a drawish line. So we can preserve the Italian (and the chance of the Evans) but avoid the 4.Ng5 line playing instead 4.d4!? So now the line goes: 1.e4  e5  2.Nf3  Nc6  3. Bc4 (Italian)  Nf6 (Two Knights defence)  4. d4!? Look, the same position of the Scotch gambit with a small change on the move order so really we are playing the Scotch gambit disguised of Italian opening.  This is the line we are going to play in the 1.e4  e5 King Pawn opening.

Caro-Kann (1...c6)

Here after 1.e4  c6 we are going for the exchange variation. 2.d4  d5  3.exd5  cxd5 4.Bd3... We could also play 4.c4 which is called, the Panov-Botvinnik attack but I think 4.Bd3 is the way to go and the model game is R.Fischer-T.Petrosian 1-0 (Belgrade, 1970).

French (1....e6)

Here, after 1.e4 e6 we are going for the Advance variation. 2.d4  d5 and here there are several continuations.

a. 3 Nc3, classical variation. This is the best according theoreticians but also the most complex, with loads of theory to remember, like e.eg. the Winawer variation with 3.Nc3  Bb4!?. This line has been very popular in the past century. The French flagship players were V.Korchnoi and the DDR player W.Uhlmann. 

b. 3.Nd2, the Tarrasch variation. Tarrasch was a strong player between XIX and XX centuries. He even played a WC match against the 2nd WC Em.Lasker. But he was most well known for being an opening theoretician. The drawback of 3.Nd2 is that it blocks whites DSB but really this bishop doesn't play an important role at the beginning of the French.

c. 3.Bd3  the Schlechter variation. Carl Schlechter was an important player at the beginning of the XX century. He even played a WC match vs. Em.Lasker that ended even, 9-9.  I never saw this variation but is endorsed by my learning chess platform, the armenian Chessmood. They have a repertoire that is developed by strong armenian GMs, so it's completely reliable and I guess they try to find less tyrended lines to surprise your opponent. I have my own repertoire but I also use some of their option. I.ex. they endorse the Scotch opening, the Caro Kann exchange which I play but in the French e.eg. I play the advance variation since I studied a lot during the pandemia and I didn't spend so much energy to play something different.

d. 3. e5, This is what we are going to play, the Advance variation. Does its job and is much simpler than the Classical 3.Nc3. So the main line goes: 1.e4  e6  2.d4 d5  3. e5 and now a common principled continuation would be:  3....c5 4.c3  Nc6  5.Nf3 etc.

Scandinavian (a.k.a.Centercounter)  1...d5

Here black immediately challenges white e4 by playing d5. e4 is an undefended pawn so the only reasonable move is to take 2.exd5. Here when I was a kid, practically the only continuation that was played followed: 2...Qxd5  3.Nc3  Qa5. Now in modern times other lines have been played. 3. Nc3 Qd6, 3.Nc3 Qd8 and 2....Nf6!? attacking the pawn twice before taking, normally with the Knight. 

What I can say about the Scandinavian is that the outcome of the opening is very similar to the Caro-Kann. So study the Caro-Kann exchange variation and apply what you have learnt to the Scandinavian. Here is the case of get two for the price of one.

 Pirc, Modern and similars 1....g6/d6

What I can say of this openings is they have in common that they don't aim to occupy the center but they rather control it by far. This principle was endorsed in chess in the first half of the XX century by Nimzowitsch, Reti, Tartakower as most prominent exponents of the so called, Hypermodern School of Chess. The fianchetto was one of the examples as the bishop aims to control the long diagonal hidden in the pawn structure. I would say that this ideas, like the blockade of passed pawns, etc. are more appliable with black than white. One example of white playing hypermodern style is the so called Nimzo-Larsen opening with 1. b3 followed by 2.Bb2. In practice this opening looks little ambitious since white has the first move and should strive for the initiative.

Well, as I said, this style suits more for black and is characterized by playing d6 (The Pirc), g6-Bg7 (the Modern) and can follow with c6 or even fianchetto the other bishop with b6-Bb7. As you can imagine after all this series of moves blacks position looks a bit cramped. That doesn't mean unsoundness because if the pieces are well developed, it will reach the middlegame when black can counter white and show its trumps. 

Resume of Modern, Pirc and similars. If black doesn't want to occupy the center we must take it. And we can choose the setup because there won't be at the short term, pawn or pieces bothering our center. IMHO, the most agressive reply to these hypermodern openings is the Austrian Attack. Is very simple and the move order is not important, I mean, we start with 1.e4 but you can also starty with 1.d4 or 1.f4 (the Bird) e.eg. As we agreed to start with 1.e4 we follow with 2.d4  3.Nc3 4.f4 5.Nf3 and the idea is to play something like e5, attacking the Nf6 and blocking the Bg7 scope. 

And that's it

we could continue, what e.eg. if black plays the Alekhine Defence (1....Nf6) or others? Nobody has played me never the Alekhine defence although I remember in the middle of the Fischer-Spassky WC in 1972, the american played with black the Najdorf and lost. In his next game with black he switched to the Alekhine defence and won. So in this chess world always we must be ready for surprises.

Next post will be My Repertoire with Black. Stay safe and play good moves.