Opening Repertoire: Playing Your Favorite Openings With Reversed Colors
Hi!
A good way to broaden your opening repertoire with little effort, especially when playing White, is to use Reversed Openings of those you play as Black. This way, you will play Openings with similar strategic and tactical ideas you are familiar with, but with an extra tempo, which gives you greater flexibility and allows you to choose more convenient variations.
Here is a list of some Reversed Openings I tried:
White Black
King's Indian Attack King's Indian Defense
English Opening (1...e5 variation) Sicilian Defense
1.g3 (King´s Fianchetto) 1...g6 (Modern /Pirc Defenses)
1.b3 (Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack) 1...b6 (Owen/English Defenses)
1.c3 1...c6
1.Nc3 1...Nc6
The extra tempo is especially important in the less sound Black defenses such as 1...b6, 1...Nc6, or even the sharp 1...g6. In those cases, you are forced to play very accurately and on the edge just to reach a playable, though somewhat inferior, position, whereas their corresponding reversed versions are much easier to handle—at least in my experience.
The main reason I play reversed openings is that they save me preparation time, since I'm already familiar with the plans, pawn structures and tactical ideas. Objetively, they are usually not too theoretical due to their slower character. However, Reversed Opening don't provide much of a clear initiative — sometimes only guarantee you an equal position. For me, they essencially represent a good balance between strategic soundness and preparation time.
If you’d like help building a simple, practical opening repertoire based on your style, feel free to message me privately.
Best,
Ariel (maafernan) – chess.com coach
