Chess repertoire and Opening synergy

I am a beginner that hopes to stick with my chosen opening forever so that I can master them. I want them to complement each other and add variety to my play. I don't just want to learn only openings that focus on one principle, like structure or attack potential, but an assortment of principles so I can effectively become a good chess player. I want to learn the Petrov against e4, Benoni against d4, and the Catalan as white. Do you think these openings are absurd for a beginner to learn? Are they able to carry me to a high elo or will I have to pick up more openings? Also, I know as a beginner to chess I should focus on endgames and middlegames (which I am!) but openings are just so interesting to me.

Hmm, maybe the benoni would be better paired with the Reti gambit? At least you'd be pretty comfortable when black pushes d4.

At a glance I'd say Benoni is not very principled, and Catalan is overly-principled (in the sense it'd take a high level positional player to squeeze out an advantage).

Would it carry you far... sure, even strong GMs will play the benoni sometimes... I don't think many would recommend it though.

1.d4 + 2.c4 will give you massive variety... the down side being that there is... massive variety

Against 1.d4 I might recommend the QGD for a year or two then add in the Nimzo. Those pair well and lead to a variety of games.

Against 1.e4 I think 1.e5 is very good, but obviously lots of openings can be recommended for various reasons.

Catalan is the only one that strikes me as odd. I am 1900 on classical and correspondence on lichess and I know I wouldn't be able to handle Catalan well. Do whatever you want of course.

But Queens Gambit would be more natural. And QG holds up even in highest level.

Benoni also seems a little too much. You will get into a lot of imbalances and suffering, when they know how to deal with it.

Petrov is perfectly fine, however.

Thanks for the advice it is very appreciated. When you said the Catalan was over principled is it because it is very transpositional or just really theory-heavy? Also, if I stick with the Petrov and QGD for black what openings for white would complement them or at least be easier for me to learn because I know the other two?

if you want a lifetime great rep

i recommend learning (as white)

the ruy lopez

and as black i recommend learning and prefecting the nimzo indian defense agianst 2.c4 players and playing a early c5 agianst the london.

and agianst e4 i recommend e5 and learning all of whites follow ups

any opening that you dont know or reconize i recommend reviewing and learning right after the game is over so you dont have any issue with it agian

Hmm, maybe the colle-zukertort as white since there's a good chance you'd end up getting a lot of QGD looking things.

For a long time Hikaru was playing it a lot in blitz (so lots of GMs were prepping for it, but coudln't get anything going) plus it's a respected system... just trying to say it's not some junk. The reason it's not more popular is the development is a little slower. Typically in 1.d4 games white puts the dark square bishop on f4 or g5, but by playing an early e3 and developing the dark square bishop to b2, it takes a little longer to get things going, but it's a perfectly fine setup (and similar to what black plays in the tartakower variation fo the QGD if you want to look that up).

Benoni is very different from the other 2. The Benoni is very aggressive and imbalanced. At top level, it's not so popular because of the Taimanov variation.

Frequently, players use the King's Indian and transpose into a Benoni against many King's Indian sidelines. This sidesteps some of white's options against the Benoni and also provides black with different options against each variation.

A few examples of the King's Indian-Benoni relationship.

This is similar to the Najdorf-Scheveningen relationship. The Scheveningen is not so popular anymore because of the Keres Attack. Many players use the Najdorf to transpose into the Scheveningen while avoiding the Keres Attack.

The Petrov is typically very dry and equal. In this sense, it's a good psychological weapon for black if that's your thing.

Sicilian and French are more in the style of the Benoni/King's Indian though. That is, they achieve sharp, double-edged positions. These defences have a similar spirit: Black doesn't want equality. They want to be better and are willing to take a risk to achieve that. They are aggressive, uncompromising defences.

They are fine, except the Catalan, which is fine of course but maybe not the ideal opening for a beginner.

The idea, that your repertoire should provide a mix of structures, solid play and dynamic play, even some endgames lines is a very good one.

You could go as you planned with the openings you mentioned and you'd be ok, some notes below,

The Benoni is thematic, as is the Benko. Of course the benoni is not a complete 1.d4 repertoire, White doesn't need to push d4-d5, there's also the option to play Nf3, so you need something for that as well.

Tbh to play dynamically with Black I'd choose something else, if you want something to last "forever"(TM), that is to marry the opening, I'd pick something that can be played both solidly and dynamically, ie the QGD ( orthodox for solid and Tartakower for dynamic) or the even more versatile Nimzo which can be paired with a semi Tarrasch, a QID or even a ..Benoni. Some GMs whose games I follow and have a very healthy positional style do play the Benoni though, albeit with the move order 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 , I'm assuming they'd rather avoid the flick-knife, as for 3.Nc3 they never play a Benoni.

The Petroff is of course a great choice, Kasparov in his modern chess series discusses why the perception of dryness is ill-founded. Later you can expand to a full blown 1. ..e5 repertoire as well.

For White, for a beginner, 1.e4 is probably the best because ultimately you can't play any position if you can't play open positions because a closed position may open up.

If you want 1.d4 though, imo start with the QGD, you could focus on minority attack lines and tbh learning the Carlsbad endgames well will bring you many points, there's a nice book on taking that route "from amateur to IM".

If you want some endgame openings in specific, take a look at Mednis' from the opening to the endgame to get some ideas. Eg if you go 1.e4 you could play the Ruy exchange or go for the Scotch Endgames.

So what you said is a valid repertoire, but since you plan to marry the openings, and a divorce later on will be costly, I'd propose the following, spend a little more time to get to know the opening you plan to marry, to be sure you don't have too many fundamental conflicts.

Spend 6-12 months trying a bit some of the choices, read relevant literature and commit to your decision in a year from now.

The best route is familiarity with the open games before anything else 👍

beginners that will commit to chess should learn how to play all types of openings to gain experiance. recommending this guy the 4 knights is no good. the ruy lopez is a very diverse, top tier,lifelasting rep. you will never get bored with all the choices you have in it.

compared to the 4 knights where you will have generally dry games

The Benoni will fall out of your repertoire when you have struggled to prove anything more if your lucky than a tough draw against the Flick-Knife Attack.

the mistake i made in my chess career is to listen to gotham and other youtubers. i played The London, the 4 knights italian, and the caro, and the kings indian.

they recommend system-like openings because they are easy to play and tell you that you are trash and the only way to stay alive is playing a system. but in reality if you never play the sharp najdorf sicilian, the closed ruy, or the 4 pawns attack in the alekhine you will never learn real chess. one of the reasons i got to 1800 in a couple months other then great memory was having a vast opening rep that i could enjoy

"You're just a simple-minded beginner who can't calculate 3 moves ahead so just play four knights game"

Honestly, the cheek of some of these gatekeeping elitists.

Play whichever opening you like. Don't listen to any of these grumpy naysayers who tell you you're not good enough to play the openings you like or it's too hard. They just want you to play the game their way: simple and boring.

Try out different things. Be open to learning and growth. Explore the game. If someone tells you not to learn about something, learn about it. And have fun in your games.

Yes, gothamchess has a very bad message for beginners. What he teaches about chess and openings is laced with his personal gripes and bitterness about which openings he doesn't like.

He's very patronising. Tells everyone to play simple-stupid chess. Tells everyone not to bother learning about some openings because he claims they're too hard. He exaggerates massively. Clickbaits. Mocks and insults lower rated players for their poor play.

Just a very negative, discouraging person.

I guessed as much lol. But don't worry I'm not in a rush or anything. I think for sure as Black I will learn the QGD and Petrov first and with White ill look at Scotch and Spanish. btw thanks so much. I got into chess a few weeks ago because my friends love it. I wanted to beat them and become that old guy who loves classical music and plays chess in the park. So I got to researching and I found out how wonderful and complex chess is ( I was ignorant). Now I'm enlightened. Before I didn't know what the heck a knight was supposed to do but now because of all these wonderful resources like Lichess and the YouTuber hanging pawns ik lol.

At very early stages, it's probably best to work on tactics, your attacking technique, defensive technique and some positional elements. That's what's going to give the most "bang for the buck". Actually this is the case for higher levels, working on annotated games and calculation & positional exercises has a much bigger impact on performance than openings.

You can look into openings later, for now in the opening get your pieces out, castle your king, connect rooks. What you can do is without studying openings, still play within a set, ie always play the Scotch and improve your knowledge game by game, without spending time studying it outside the reviews of your own games.

Petrov is a very smart choice, Benoni is a small miss, and the Catalan is a small miss. This is a doable repertoire but the Benoni and Catalan are both heavily positionally focused (as mentioned below) so I'd recommend something more along the lines of Petrov/KID/QGD where positional play is still the focus but there is a lot of tactical opportunity and chess to be played as well. Something a bit like this for the QGD though, I don't trust the immediate QGA honestly and this gives White the time to fully punish it easily.

Im learning checkmates, tactics, and endgames on Lichess, Chess.com, and youtube. After that, where can I find resources on attacking technique, defensive technique, and positional elements?

You're doing the right thing, keep building your knowledge on patterns, keep playing and analysing your games. Also start paying attention to your systematic errors, ie what did you miss in a variation you calculated etc, so that you self-improve over time.

Most of the entry level books I had gone through were from a different era but some classics will always be worth it.

For attacking technique, Vukovic's book, edited by Nunn.

For entry level positional play, Simple Chess by Michael Stean ( that author ! there's another simple chess book by a different author ), also Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca.

Also get a couple of books on classic Master games, ie Fischer's my 60 memorable games, Alekhine was a great annotator as well and has written lots of books on his games. A little later perhaps you can also look into Kasparov's Predecessors series.

These will serve you well till about 1700ish fide.

I have heard very good things for Yusupov's books, which are meant to take someone from beginner to master, but I haven't read them.

Tbh don't study openings at all at this phase, it will slow down your development. If you see an opening you like from an annotated master's game collection, try it and try to emulate the plan you saw in the game. Over time you will organically build a repertoire this way.