Anyone else hate their own opening repertoire?

Seriously, anything I play, there's always some line to trip me up. I don't know how others balance it.

I play d4, someone plays c5. Theoretically good for White, but I hate playing against the Benonis.

I play e4, I have to deal with EVERYTHING. Too much stuff.

I play e6 as Black, I end up in a Taimanov via transpo and I just mess it up cluelessly.

I play d6 as Black, I opt for a Lion and I either lose to the aggression after 4. f4 or I play the Q exchange line and just blunder pawns.

Nf6 lands me in some Londons I can never outtranspose my opponent in. All my lines get avoided, everything I opt for - the other side gets instead.

I make a break from chess, and every time I come back, I feel like I've never played at all.

I hate that I feel like this, it's like the last ounce of being reasonable just goes away from me.

F this.

Serbs are unfair period

I think nothing infuriates me about chess as much as the fact that a game, which operates on a very logical ruleset, can make so little sense even after I've played for around 13 years (and don't get me wrong there, I had another account before this one, plus I also played on other sites). And we're not talking about some crazy 3000+ ELO Stockfish-only position, we're talking about BASIC. OPENING. STRATEGY. I always get it, but whenever I fail to prevent some big strategic aim the other side has in the opening, I collapse. I can never play safely enough or sensibly enough, I feel like I'm devolving into a full caveman style. Like I've been relying on my opponents to play bad moves all my life... and now, around 2000 on Lichess, I don't get that, people are either really booked up or really tricky. And I can't contend with that.

And to think all I wanted was to improve my rapid play. Not gonna pretend I'm GM material or anything at the ripe age of 27, but this is just ridiculous. How I can feel so demented while playing a game I've been playing for almost half my life now, it's just beyond me.

Up until recently (and around 1800 elo on lichess) I had a similar problem with not wanting to learn too much opening theory. My solution was to play only the hedgehog system (more or less).

As white I played 1. b3 (you need to learn a little bit of theory against black's e4 and d4 setup, but you nearly always end up with the same hedgehog-y position in other lines). As black I play the Sicilian Kan, even against the Sicilian sidelines you can normally force a hedgehog system. I was never able to find anything I really liked playing against 1.d4, ended up with the Nimzo/Queens Indian, which is a pain since you have to know a decent amount of theory or you occasionally get run over.

Here's the 1.b3

I should note though, that I recently got bored of playing 1. b3 into the same system every game as white and decided to learn 1. e4 simply because I now find it more fun (albeit with more theory), but these systems weren't holding me back from improving.

I mean, I also hate my opening repertoire but not for the same reason as you. It’s just that I’ve been playing literally the same lines for almost 3 years now and it’s making me feel like I need to start exploring different openings instead otherwise I wouldn’t improve. I just made a new account last month and I still am struggling with other openings especially d4 as white and Sicilian as black. It took me alot of time to bring it to 2000 rating lol. (was stuck on 1800 with openings i dont know)

I've had the same problem as yours, to an extent. For example, I used to play the Modern Scandinavian and get perfectly satisfactory positions (because people rarely face it and also everyone seems to misplay the Icelandic Gambit as White), but then I just felt I got okay positions and nothing more... and since my Knights end up firmly on the queenside in many lines, sometimes I just get smoked on the kingside (which is exactly AGAINST my style), so I leave the Scandi and go back to the Modern, then I get annoyed when White plays lines with c3 and blunts my Bishop (and also, you'd at least like to have White play Nc3 if you're going for the Gurgenidze, but with c3 instead, it might just be another French and you don't get to exploit the slightly weak e1-a5 diagonal). Then I fall to some caveman attack on f7, then I go for the small centre and play the Hippo and that never sticks as interesting (although I might be able to make it work if I just play the mainline Modern move order). And so on and so on.

I don't necessarily hate my repertoire, but at my level, barely anyone plays into my prep, and most of them just play random moves that I have no theory for. The openings I enjoy to play the most are:

1. Vienna Gambit.

2. Stafford Gambit

3. Ponziani

4. Grunfeld Defense

5. Traxler counterattack(pls don't kill me I can like what I want I know d5 Na5 is fine but it's too passive for me)

6. Alapin 

7. Blackmar-diemer

8.Englund Gambit(yes I know it's unsound but it's not played often at all so there's a high chance your opponent will screw up)

all of these I hardly ever get to play(because people at my level don't know what to do and just don't play into anything) so I have just accepted it and play boring i mean standard openings for now. I don't really hate my repertoire, I just can't play anything I like. I think that counts, because it is equal frustration.

Study what your opponents play, not what is written in books. When I was learning birds opening (1.f4) my opponents would often push their h pawn on move four! This struck me as extremely unsound but I would always collapse quickly. So? I played games against myself over and over again until I developed a reasonable defense to keep the exchange. And now I win every single one of those games - and even if I don’t I always keep my advantage for quite a long time.

Wouldn't it be good to study both? Also I don't have any books, mostly from Youtube, most of the rest from Lichess.

It would be good to study both but often times your opponents don’t play what you expect, so you have to learn the strongest responses to those moves.

I have tried to KID and the Nimzo, but both are to passive for me. Neither of them satisfy my urge to attack like the Grunfeld does.

Hey, just wanna say that I love the Traxler! Shame I don't trust myself enough to play 1... e5 against 1. e4 in the first place.

So basically, you went down the AlphaZero (well, any NN engine) route? I can respect that, except whenever I analyse an opening against myself, I'm biased towards the side I want to win as, so I always play worse against myself than my opponent might play against me, to an extent.

Also, sometimes I feel trapped between generations when it comes to study methods, so I just brush it off as "engines don't teach you palpable logic, just tactics and that's still a maybe" and I don't ever consult an engine for objectivity. To me, engines are a burden, because I wanna git gud on my own understanding and not some silicon abstractions.

That was my exact thought process... haha

also, being biased is probably better. I’d make one side make bad moves on purpose and try to punish it. Then, if I’m satisfied, I go back and find a better move. If I don’t like that there are better moves, I go back to Ben further and see if my favorite side could have put the pressure on earlier on. If not, then I go back to the position and try to find the best practical plan by playing different variations against myself.

lol

as one of those h-pawn pushers i must say that it's extremely effective in blitz

you die now

yeah but i play the from's gambit against f4 and pushing the h-pawn is a legit strategy

even if white plays well he only has a slight advantage

of course i always overpush but that's a different story

pushing the h pawn is not a legit strategy in the from's gambit

trust me, I'd know

actually yes it is