A Guide to Choosing Your Opening Repertoire

Picking the correct opening repertoire is one of the most important decisions that a chess player makes. There is no point starting the game with a series of moves that will lead you into a situation that you find uncomfortable.

The aim of this article is to provide you with some important factors to consider when picking openings.

We can all fall victim to picking a bad opening; take a look at the following game, which gave me no enjoyment at all.

Players with less opening options are too predictable and it is easy to prepare against them.

It is not a problem of being surprised and caught; after all, if you only play 1 thing you probably know it better than most people. However, you lose all your edge against a weaker opponent who could prepare and play the first 25-30 moves like a top player, for example.  Our opening selections should be based on our playing style and personality.

This only means that if you prefer quiet positions you should not play the Dragon variation with black but 1…e5 or 1…c6 can suit you. You can also follow the choices of a player of your preference. It could be your chess idol or some strong player whose games have had some influence on you.

 suits your way of life.

Do you study chess for hours each day, or do you prefer only to play, without any study? There is no point playing an opening that requires you to spend hours studying the latest improvements if you do not have time to do this.

Examples for White

Let’s say that you are in love with open positions and sharp attacks. You think that this type of positions suit better to you, and the statistics about your games confirm it. Your repertoire might look like the following:

• You will alway play 1. e4
• If your opponent chooses the Open game (1. e4 e5) then you will go for the Spanish opening starting with 2. Nf3 Nc6
• If (s)he chooses a second move different than 2. Nc6, for example the Petrov 2. … Nf6 or the Philidor 2. … d6, then you will continue in classic attacking fashion with 3. d4
• Against the Sicilian defense, of course you will go for the attack with 2. … c5 3. Nf3 and then 4. d4 and continue with the main lines in each variation
• Against the French defense, you will play classically with 2. d4, and play the main lines in each variation
• No wonders against the Caro-Kann 1. … c6, you will conquer the center first with 2. d4 d5 3. e5
• and so on for all other Black’s defenses against 1. e4 …

Notice that this is a very ambitious repertoire. It implies that you will have to study all the mainlines in the Spanish, Sicilian and French defenses, that are very complex lines! They are also very combative types of position, so they would probably fit well your nature.

It’s common though, for club-players, to choose some secondary line against the main defense. The goal is to keep the amount of theory limited, and to try to get to similar structures by several routes.

I definitely recommend this approach. It’s a good way to learn very well and at great depth a few lines, in limited number, before expanding your repertoire further.

With respect to the previous example, here is how it would change.

• You will alway play 1. e4
• Against any type of Open Game (1. e4 e5) you will play in Giuoco Pianissimo style, that is Bc4, d3, Nf3, c3, Nbd2, in some order. The nice thing about this scheme is that you can arrive at similar positions from various openings / move orders.
• To meet the very intricate Sicilian Defense you will always play the closed scheme, also known as King’s attack, with g3, Bg2, f4, 0-0, d3, c3, again in some order. This scheme is very nice because it can arise from different openings too.
• Against the French defense you will play … the King’s attack again. Of course there will be some small but important difference, but in general you would enjoy having similar structure over and over, until you really master it.
• and so on for the other defenses, you would choose somewhat more mono-thematic approaches, until you’ve played them so many times that you are an expert (and probably you’re already FM or so!)

Examples for Black

Let’s consider now the case of the same player that likes street fight wars a lot, and feels at home in open, spicy battles.

The objective with Black is, first of all, to choose one and only one main defense, against every possible first move. And then, of course, to select sub-variations for each possible approach by White.

The repertoire could look like the following:

• Against 1. e4 you will always play the Sicilian defense 1. … c5
• If White plays the Open Sicilian the you will play the Sveshnikov 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5, that leads to very complex and open battles, with pieces and pawns hanging on both flanks. Good luck with that!
• If White choose a closed scheme like 3. Bb5 or 2. Bc4 then you will play for the black squares with g6, Bg7, e5, in the correct order (be careful with the order when playing Black!)
• If White chooses the King’s attack with g3, Bg2, f4, etc. you will still play g6, Bg7 but keep the pawn on e6 rather than e5, with also d6, Ne7. A flexible and tricky scheme, for both sides.
• For all other tricky moves by White, such as 2. c3, 2. b4, 2.f4, you have no other choice than to study the main theory, because those variations are supposed to be good for Black if he knows his stuff.
• Against 1. d4 you will always play the King’s Indian Defense.
• And so on for all sub-variations in the Kings’s Indian Defense.
• And so forth for all other first moves by White!

As you can see, there’s quite a lot of work to be done. That’s okay though! Building a Opening Repertoire from scratch is not a 1-week effort! It will take time, but it will be well-spent time.

I have two more suggestions for you.

First, when you have the list of openings that you want to include in your Repertoire, keep this list at hand, and each time you complete one of them put a nice tick next to the name, so you will see how far are you from completing your repertoire!

In second place, I warmly recommend that you dedicate all time and focus that you can to each opening. Don’t rush just for the sake of completing your database. Every hole that you leave in your preparation will have to be filled in future, or else it will bring you problems when you play real games.

Therefore, stay focused on each opening and before to switch to next one on the list be sure you’ve dedicated the right amount of time to it, and you’ve analyzed it as deeply as you could.

How to change Opening Repertoire

One thing that you will want to do after a while is to change some of “your” openings. It’s totally normally, everybody gets bored of playing over and over again the same type of position.

The one thing you should avoid is to change repertoire too often. Wait the time to become really good at one opening, before changing it. This is very important for your chess growth, and general understanding of the game.

In other words, once you settle on a opening, stick to it for a while before changing it. Change it only when you feel really confident that you’ve learnt the subtleties of it.

The good news though, is that changing Opening Repertoire is not like inventing a new science. You “just” have to do what you already did, over again.

Watch out though: you should NOT change your entire repertoire at once. Choose one opening in your current repertoire, maybe the one that you know best, and replace it with a new opening. This “new entry” could be one of the top-choices that you left out when deciding the previous repertoire, for example.

Thank you for reading!