Beginner Repertoire

The beginner is me...

I've dabbled for quite a while but never seriously.  Now I'd like to begin my chess "career" in earnest.  I'm probably @ Class D.  I want to settle on an initial opening repertoire so that I can then focus more on endgames and tactics.  The openings I was looking for would, for the most part, give me good tactical games while showing me a variety of positions.  I think I've settled on the following:

WHITE

King's Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4  --I do like to attack

Bb5 Sicilian (Rossolimo & Moscow)  --the moves feel right to me

BLACK

Alekhine's  --ok, I like being different too

Nimzo-Indian  --for a variety of situations.  (And a good rep.)

What do you folks think?  Am I biting off way more than I can chew?  I need something that I can count on for a couple years, anyway.  Any comments are appreciated.

Personally, I think you should play what you enjoy playing -- assuming it's respectable (which everying you listed above is).  Don't waste your time with silly and unsound things like the Grob (1. g4).  I also think you're on the right track spending your time on tactics and endgames.  I'd suggest spending a little bit of time annotating master games.  For the latter, pick games in the openings you play which will help you not only learning your openings but also with the middle games and endgames they lead to.

Also, keep in mind that you don't have a complete repertoire listed there.  On the White side, you need something against the 2... e6 Sicilians, the French, and the Karo-Cann (maybe the Panov-Botvinnik Attack against the KC if you like to attack).  Eventually you'll learn a line against everything else, probably in annoyance after getting clobbered by it the first time you see it.

On the Black side, you might want to swap the Nimzo for something you'll actually get to play.  I had the Nimzo in my repertoire for months in CC games here, and never got to play it once.  Lots of QGDs, QIDs, Bogos, but not a single Nimzo.  If you like to attack, the Kings Indian might be more to your liking anyway since the Nimzo tends to be more of a positional sort of affair -- and there isn't anything to stop you from using a basic KID setup against anything except 1.e4 (and even then you could play the Pirc or Modern).  Also, you'll need something against the English (1. c4) -- and you'll pick up something against the various other off-beat things White can try as you go.

Good luck!

Not a bad repertoire, but may I make some suggestions.

First, the Kings Gambit is a great opening, but I wouldn't recommend it for a beginners. For a beginner the most important thing about the opening is to just make it to a playable middle game, so you can focus the middle and end game. With the kings gambit you will have alot of games that will be won or lost in the opening, which won't really help you in the middle game. If you like to attack I would recommend the scotch gambit, the goring gambit or the evans gambit. In general your main focus should be to develop you pieces quickly, fight for control of the center, and get castled. The  kings gambit has a ton of theory behind it to, go with something simpler.

I don't know much about the Bb5 sicilian, I prefer the morra smith gambit. As long as your focusing on development, get castled and controlling the center it's fine.

Alekhine's Defense, is not good for beginners. It just breaks to many opening principals, you'll end up moving your Knight 3 times in the opening, and you give up control of the center. I would just play e5 learn how directly fight for control of the with pawn, before you get into hyper modern opening, that require you to indirectly control the center with pieces.

I like the nizmo-indian for beginners, I know I'm contradicting what I just said about hypermodern openings. But the ideas behind the nizmo indian are bit more straight forward than, some other hyper modern openings. But you do need also know how to play the bogo indian or queens indian.

And against the english just play 1...e5

Zzanzibar: "I want to settle on an initial opening repertoire so that I can then focus more on endgames and tactics.  The openings I was looking for would, for the most part, give me good tactical games while showing me a variety of positions."

The Nimzo-Indian involves alot of theory. You have to know when to trade B for N and when to retreat it. You also have to prepare the Queen's Indian or Bogo Indian to complement it. Alekhine's Defense in many ways runs counter to the basic opening principles you want to learn. These wouldn't be my first choices.

But play what you enjoy. That's why we play chess. Good luck.  :)

Great feedback, thanks.  The point about the brevity of the King's Gambit is especially well-taken; I might try the Scotch Gambit instead.

Pirc, Modern, KID: are these good for beginners?  My concern especially is that I have something playable at my level (i.e., somewhat understandable) but that will give me a good foundation to grow on.

And point taken about Alekhine's.  But I need something to express my 60s counter-cultural roots.

You like to attack so play the kings bishop gambit yet play rossolimo and moscow variations in the sicilians?! Spock might say thats not logical .

I would think an aggressive beginner repertoire would look something like:

1.e4

king's gambit vs. e5

gran prix or morra gambit vs. sicilian

advanced vs. french

panov vs. Caro-Kann

150 attack vs. Pirc/Modern

As Black:

1...e5 vs. e4 (I'm sure there are lots of aggressive options as black in e5...you don't have to go crazy and play the Latvian gambit, but something like the 2-Knights vs. Bc4 and something aggressive vs. the Ruy would make a lot of sense.)

vs. d4...something like the QGD or maybe even the Chigorin defence, would provide nice fundamental instruction and still lead to aggressive possibilities.

1...e5 vs. the english (just play a gran-prix in reverse 1...e5, 2...Nc6,3...f5)

Something like that...

Very interesting discussion!

I used to nurish the idea that Morra and Danish gambit should work well together?

Anyhow, Suppose you like something not-so-wild as King's Gambit. What would you suggest? 

You could try the Evan's Gambit.

That or learn Ruy Lopez theory...but who wants to do that?

Yeah, I would much rather be a generic miniature generator and play King's Gambit without the "burden" of theory

Well, if you wanted something more mainstream you could play the Scotch.

However I looked at it awhile ago when I was thinking of playing e4, and generally I found it to be rather dull in most lines. The Mieses variation is of course tons of fun and very sharp, but more often than not black plays 4...Bc5, which seemed to me to equalize on the spot. At best white has a tiny plus, with rather dull play.

The line I saw more than anything was this:

Of course if black plays 4...Nf6 then the scotch becomes tons of fun!

It is astonishing that people suggest to avoid the Ruy because of theory, and advocate the King's Gambit without learning any.

If you don't know the Ruy Lopez theory as White, you have a playable, equal position. If you don't know King's Gambit theory, you're down a pawn and much worse!

I think playing gambits is very bad advice for weaker players. Their positional and tactical skills are not good enough to provide compensation for the pawn, which basically means they're playing a normal game, a pawn down.

I'd go for the Scotch as White vs. 1.e4 e5, and against the Sicilian I would suggest 2.c3. 2.c3 has good, understandable positional motivation (White wants to build a big center), is tough to play against for Black, and it doesn't give away a pawn like the Morra does.

The idea of beginners playing gambits is that they are forced to play tactical positions, and by doing so improve their tactical ability. You don't get better at tactics by playing the exchange slav or the petrov.

Also, the average player can get by knowing a few key positions and variations in the king's gambit. You can do the same in the Ruy at a low level, but it just isn't as tactical and fun.

That's not a bad line Scarblac!

I always took on c6 because the book I had said that was the best line and Kasparov always played it that way. Maybe the scotch aint so bad afterall.

But that's a false reason. In beginners' games, EVERY position is a tactical position, simply because both players will make plenty of mistakes that allow tactics.

Besides, not every opening that isn't a gambit is the exchange Slav, nor are gambits automatically the most tactical variations. And the Petroff may be extra solid at GM level, below 2000 it just isn't.

Openings are not that important for players below, say, 2200. Games are won and lost in the middle game and end game. So what is needed are openings that just "bring the ball in play", not openings where White immediately needs to have memorized the exact best move in the position just to justify the pawn he gave away.

And perhaps all this would be excusable if these gambits were actually any good, but you don't see GMs play them.

King's gambit- Since you like to attack you should stick to it, be careful with it, the best to learn from the king's gambit is to play it out. I play King's gambit and I do wel with it.

Bb5 Siclian- Don't like it that much I think since you like to attack you should play 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3, against d6 you should play d4 and continue from there. But if you want to stick to it you should check out a book by Lary Kaufman: Chess Advantages in Black and White.

Alekhine- Never played, seems fine stick to it.

Nimzo-Indian - Used to play it didn't like it because it is far too complicated. Then I switched to KID, too pasive. I started to play d5 and against c4 I played e5. Amazing rep for that.

The King's Gambit is perfectly sound, even though you don't see grandmasters playing it. All they ever play are lines wherein at the end of mountains of theory white has a slight plus...so that kind of cuts down on a lot of perfectly playable options.

I guess people like the King's Gambit because it gives immediate attacking options to white at a minimum of theory. Yea they'll go down in flames more than a few times, but once you get the hang of it I can tell you from experience the king's gambit leaves a lot of room for tactical creativity.

I checked chessgames.com for Kasparov's games in C45, seems he played 5.Nxc6 three times and 5.Be3 twice.

5.Nxc6 is to me something that's in fashion at top level since the 90s, probably since no advantage was found for White in the deep theory after 5.Be3. I know what I prefer for myself though :-)