Advice for a limited time chess player.
Nothing wrong with the Alekhine. Lev Alburt, a GM and three-time US Champ switched to it after losing a Sicilian to Karpov.
There's not nearly as much theory to the Alekhine as the Sicilian or French. If you find the resulting positions reasonably comfortable, go for it.
I play the Dutch Stonewall and White has no real way of avoiding it. It has flaws though. You'll spend valuable moves in the opening building the pawn wall and your king will be exposed on a diagonal, but I play it largely for the reason you do.
The London,
3...Qd8 Scandinavian, there is good practical book on it titled The 3...Qd8 Scandinavian Simple And Strong by Daniel Lowinger,
The Tarrasch Defense against 1 d4, The Tarrasch Defense by Sam Collins is a good practical book.
Imo that is about as close as you are going to find to what you are seeking.
However, there is a book by New In Chess publisher that is due to come out soon and it is advertised as presenting an all in one book repertoire for playing both sides of the board that uses similiar themes when playing both sides, geared for those concerned about having to know too much theory these days. The book is titled The Fianchetto Solution. I'm waiting on the book's release, I'm hopeful.
I play the Dutch Stonewall and White has no real way of avoiding it. It has flaws though. You'll spend valuable moves in the opening building the pawn wall and your king will be exposed on a diagonal, but I play it largely for the reason you do.
Yes there sure is unless you want a really bad position:
1.d4 f5 (1...e6 2.e4) 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.Nf3, now 4...d5 is a horrible move, 5.Bf4! with a significant advantage for White
1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.c4, here 4...c6 should be played and if 5.Nh3, then 5...d6, switching gears to the Classical. 4...d5 is bad because of 5.Nh3!
1.d4 f5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 e6 4.e3, here again, 4...d5 is a bad move.
The big advantage of the Stonewall for black is the e4 square. It's just crying out for a knight to be planted there. If the knight gets captured, then a pawn can recapture, driving an annoying wedge into White's postition.
To the OP
I've been asking that question myself. An opening/defense for a player with limited time. I've been changing my repertoire ever since and I am getting nowhere. My earlier post on this thread recommended the Old Indian book, because I feel it can deal with everything after seeing the old IM Andrew Martin video on anti-flank systems.
For a player with a limited time, what I did first was I listed all my likes and dislikes. You may call it SWOT analysis if you like. You list down your strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Here's mine:
My strength
I love queenless games, closed, passive (as well as weird and "equal") positions. I love accepting draws (or is it a weakness?) and I love endgames (very much)
My weaknesses
I sucked in calculations, I have chess blindness on tactics and combinations. Limited time (two hours only :-) )
Opportunities:
With my limited time as White - I'm focused on London/Torre/Colle/QGD exchange/Slav exchange positions and Trompovsky positions because these are the positions I truly understand and I feel very comfortable with them (sometimes I do e4 courtesy of John Emms book but I grew tired of facing sicilians)
as Black
against e4 - I ended up defending scandinavian, alekhine and the French rubinstein (depending on my mood or the Philidor)
against d4 - Czech Benoni or the Old Indian
others - 1...d6
Threats
With all these, I have a very narrow repertoire. They can take advantage of my repertoire with move orders. To take care of these, I go back to 1...d6 move orders, going back to the positions I truly understand.
New opening updates - with my limited time - I dont know how will I handle this. My best try is instead of "learning new openings or defenses", I'll use the time on learning pawn structures (middlegames) and endgames. I mean, what are the chances for me facing a grandmaster? Heck, the only way for a player to improve is to learn from mistakes.
I hope I helped you out with this post.
p.s. I'd still recommend you study the Old Indian
Agree with some of the suggestions here. I would 100% suggest Black Lion/Philidor vs e4 and Old Indian type positions vs d4, 2 books by Barsky on Chess Stars are great, to the point and easy to digest. Modern philidor and d4 a universal weapon are the two. If you want something more aggressive vs e4 grab the Simon Williams dvd on the Black Lion or perhaps the book by the 2 dutch guys who's names escape me who named the opening
4 hours a day?