building an opening repertoire around D4

Hey guys I have settled that finally I am going to build my first chess repertoire for white around the D4 move

the openings I am looking at are:

queen's pawn game

queen's gambit accepted and declined

Nimzo indian

and queen's indian

maybe later will add the c4 english opening

Does this look like a solid repertoire are there oppenings I should add, drop, or replace 

Thanks 

@Conman39:  As I understand it, any game that begins with 1. d4 is a queen's pawn game.  The Queen's Gambit is just one of many different queen's pawn games.

1400's is not "WAY WAY" below what you need to learn opening theory, its time to start dabbling in it. You do learn some chess while learning openings and why certain moves are played. Tactics should still be the main focus, but time should be spent on phases of the game like openings too.

"Queen's Pawn Game" is, in essence, dubbed as being any opening where White plays 1.d4 and avoids 2.c4.

Torre, Trompowsky, London, Colle, Zukertort, Blackmar-Diemer, Veresov, etc are all subsets of the "Queen's Pawn Game".

Lines with c4 have their open name (Queen's Gambit, King's Indian, etc)

1. d4 d5 is a Queen's Pawn game, and you've got plenty of room for variance from the Queen's Gambit (London, Torre, Colle, Trompowsky, Pseudotrompowsky, etc.)  Of course, the Queen's Gambit is better than all of those.  

I think 1400 is about the time most players start looking at opening theory, or at least decide whether they are 1. d4 or 1. e4 players.  The OP is probably not 1400 yet (his blitz rating is likely a better indicator of strength than his correspondence).  So looking at openings won't do him much good.  Of course, it's not until players get to around 1600-1800 that they are able to begin to develop serious answers to all openings, but making your opening tree is fun and I don't discourage anyone from trying it, regardless of rating.

From my understanding queen's pawn game happens is not QGA/QGD it is normaly met with includes no meet in the center usualy involves d4 and ...Nf6

example of queen's pawn game by petrosian  

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 Bb4 4. Bd2 Bxd2 5. Qxd2 Ne4 6. Qc2f5 

or 

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. g3 b6 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. O-O d6 6. c4 Nbd77. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qc2 Nxc3

or

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. e3 b6 4. Bd3 Bb7 5. O-O Be7 6. Nbd2 d57. b3 O-O 8. Bb2 c5 9. a3 Nbd7 10. c4 Ne4 11

I remember when my teacher gave me my first homework, making a repertoire. So my recommendation:

Find something against Queens Gambit Declined and Queens gambit accepted

The slav

The Kings Indian Defence

The Nimzo-indian (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3! Bb4) (as an extra quesiton: Find out why Bb4 is played in the Nimzo, so you can beat answers such as 3... Be7).

After every blitz, if the game has a main-line position after 5 moves, find out which opening it is, and look at a game (from chessgames.com, maybe) from that opening.

I am over 1400 

1. Play 1.d4

2. Play a few good moves after that 

3. Don't blunder

4. Profit

As you get better at #3 your play will improve. You might enjoy watching some famous games with the openings you're curious about and go on from there. A lot of the players I've seen that have been trying to break into the FM/NM (I always mix these up) have always talked about having weaknesses in the openings anyway. I'm not sure if that means much but it's something I noticed.

I teach elementary school beginners. I give them tactics, openings, endgames, middlegames, a little of everything. I don't think you can understand chess by just studying one slice. My kids rack up the trophies to prove it.

You know what your typical beginner does at that level without instruction? Usually something like 1.a4 followed by 2. Ra3.

Its time to learn a little something about openings then, yes?

And like I said, you learn about chess when you study openings, which is true of any phase of the game.

Who is putting the word out there to study openings first for a newbie? The first thing i was forced to study was the End Game.

Yes for beginners they study openings as principles, and as they improve you start teaching specifics. Just like endgames, at the beginning you learn things like mate with 2 rooks, and as they improve you teach more specific skills.

There is no reason not to have a balanced approach learning chess.

I dont get it.

You have the unmistakable air of a troll. The OP is not interested in your petty tirade.

There is nothing wrong with studying openings as long as you learn why each move is made and not simply memorize them. Learning tactics and piece coordination is far more useful than learning openings alone. If you can master tactics (end game, middle game), you then have what it takes to create effective openings. That's my opinion. And that's what I am personally working towards.

Oh, and Sally, funny comment above. A bit conceited, but still humorous.

And, Ubik42: You are probably right.

About tactics... How do you "learn" them? I mean, I do realise that that is something I need to get better at, but how exactly do you study them? A bit of help needed right there... Also, so far, learning some openings and understanding them has been extremely useful to me, I think more useful that anything else. Am I doing something wrong?

PS: I am sorry for not offering any help and being irrelevant, but... Do you really think I am in a position to offer help? I definetely not.

I strongly disagree that your "repertoir" is either a repertoir or a good use of your time. You are preparing a repertoir for White that includes the Nimzo Indian, the Queen's Indian and a sideline of the Bogo Indian being used as an anti-Catalin system. This gives White three moves after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6. (a) 3. Nc3, (b) 3. Nf3 and (c) 3. g3.

You also gave no indication that you are preparing anything against the Slav, King's Indian, Benoni including 1...c5, the Modern Benoni and Benko, the Dutch, the Budapest and the Gruenfeild.

So as near as I can tell your opening "repertoir" has big holes that look like this in it:

(a) 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 out of book

(b) 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 out of book

(c) 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5!? out of book

(d) 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 out of book 

By learning tactics, I mean tactical tools such as pairing Bishops, or various checkmate patterns, or the importance of connecting your Rooks. Then there is piece counting and capture order. When to capture vs. when not to capture. And how pawns can be used as annoying weapons against your opponent.

To give you an example of a tactic in an opening, take the Sicilian: Do you know why black plays c5 in response to white's e4? Maybe you do, but in case you don't, black is preparing to make a pawn trade in the center (...exd4, Nxd4) leaving white without a center pawn while black keeps both of his. And then there is the Najdorf variation: a6 is played by black to prevent white from playing Bb5+. But if someone doesn't know the tactical reason behind these moves, such lines of play become useless.

If Conman89 wants to start building an opening repertoire based on d4, more power to him. It's good to have goals. So far he's not talking about memorizing anything out to 20 moves. He'll find out soon enough, if he doesn't know already, how much work it is to get to even five moves or so.

Nor is he talking about building his world on b3 or f4. Just about everything he learns from d4 will be good, solid stuff.

Conman89: Those are fine openings to look at. I would skip the Queen Pawn Games, skip the English, and stick with 1.d4/2.c4. You probably should pick either 3.Nc3 or 3.Nf3. If 3.Nc3, look at the Nimzo. If 3.Nf3, the Queen's Indian. You'll also want to consider the popular King's Indian. That's plenty, actually a huge amount, to start with.

I agree with others that you should not obsess on openings. Just take it a step at a time. Read some articles on the openings you like (wiki is fine for this), try them in your games, afterward see where your games diverged, think about what happened, then try some more. Let your opening knowledge grow.

I looked at some of your games and your biggest weakness is tactics.

The best thing I did for myself, and still do, is practice tactics. Pins, forks, discovered attacks, skewers, decoys, one-move mates, two-move mates, etc. are crucial at all stages of the game. Start with simple tactical exercises and work your way up.

You must develop your chess muscles so you can reliably use and defuse tactics. Otherwise playing chess is really painful no matter how much you learn about openings, middlegames, or endgames.

 Thank you for the interest and consideration. Also, this kind of stuff you told me about, came pretty much naturally to me when I played chess. But now I do undestand what you mean about learning tactics and understanding why openings are there. My main problem now is, I think, how to actually learn what I need, because everything looks such a mess! If you would like to offer me some help, I have prepared a forum thread, open for help and suggestions, I would highly appreciate it.

By the way, you mentioned the Sicilian defence. Never mention it. It is the most annoying thing ever if you play as white and the black does it. It is just hate to have to face it. It is terrible. And that is probably the reason I don't ever use it as black, I feel sorry for the whites. That does not mean that the Sicilian is some ultra professional fantastic opening that can't be beaten, it is just terribly annoying apart from just good.