I wholeheartedly recommend the King's Indian Defense.
I have played the KID for about a year and it has greatly helped me understand common structures better. It greatly helped me understand how to play structures with a closed center.
The KID can be a little hard to learn but once you learn the basic ideas it is a strong opening and you don't need to learn a ton of theory.
Yeah, I have a kind of approach where I like to study all openings and try them for a while to try to dictate the kind of positions I enjoy. I played the French for a while, but lost interest because of the bad bishop, lack of space, and lack of king safety you get in many lines. Not saying it is unplayable by any stretch, but I enjoy learning chess a lot more from playing positions starting with e5 or c5 against 1.e4
That's fair. The 'bad bishop' in the Advance variation can be traded off by playing like so, did you ever try this variation?
yeah! I played the Euwe var for a while, Recommendation of Simon Williams. My problem is that it doesn’t seem like a very ambitious try vs 1.e4, and I like the more flexible tries that lead to all sorts of positions.
Is anyone able to recommend any books on the semislav then? Or any recommendations against the English? Being a KID player I now will need to learn a response to it, considering c6 could lead to the accelerated panov and I do not like the caro as black.
Play like this to start and avoid the Caro-Kann, and look up St Louis Chess Club Semi-Slav on Youtube, they have 8 and a half hours of longform analysis on it in a 10 part series.
I'll link it here, actually: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbBLZ-pYs8HiN6p-KR8GwCNpHS0o0lvLk
Actually, this move order still allows the exchange QGD. I'd rather go for the traditional slav move order or triangle move order, although apparently the triangle slav is a completely different ballpark with the noteboom and marshall gambit, and I honestly don't think the exchange slav is the worst thing in the world to face. I have had great success in the French exchange and KID exchange variations so I am not super worried. I just dislike the QGD exchange because white can go for a very simple setup with an annoying edge. I would rather at least attempt to challenge white's first move, and if they go for the exchange slav then they are basically neutralizing it themselves.
I wholeheartedly recommend the King's Indian Defense.
I have played the KID for about a year and it has greatly helped me understand common structures better. It greatly helped me understand how to play structures with a closed center.
The KID can be a little hard to learn but once you learn the basic ideas it is a strong opening and you don't need to learn a ton of theory.
Yeah, like I said I do love this opening and I have had some great wins, and I do feel somewhat comfortable with the ideas, however it just allows white to consolidate his center and many times that can prove fatal to the black player. Kramnik's many wins as white against the KID also makes me worry about the long term compatability with my repertoire, and I would prefer to not have to switch it out later for a different opening when I can learn the ideas and feel comfortable with a more sound opening now.
check out also...
Chigorin Defense
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chigorin+defense
Ragozin Defense/System
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ragozin+defense+chess
be sure to check out 'Hanging Pawns' channel on these defenses.