Generic opening for black

Hi all, I'm new to the forum ☺

I'm picking chess up again after 20+ years. This time, I'm determined to do it properly. As white I am studying all the possible variations as deep as I can for queens gambit.

However, I know this will take a huge amount of time and I am going to devote 12 months to it.

However, this means I will be lacking in my development for openings for black.

What is the best single generic black opening that I can use now, to at least give me a foothold in most games?

Obviously I know I eventually will have to study as black as hard as I am doing for white, but I need to start somewhere ☺

It's probably not objectively best to start studying openings too much at the beginning. Studying endgames, doing tactical puzzles and playing some nice long games (here on chess.com or in a over the board in a chess club.)

If you're worried about openings you can study principles of the opening which you can google up. And even if you're still worried you can learn 1 opening for white, and one black response to e4 and a black response to d4. Learn the ideas op the openings you study rather than memorizing concrete variations.

Everything that Fireline said.

Also, the Queen's Gambit is not an opening that you can play every game as White anyway... Black needs to comply 

You've definitely chosen the wrong way to go about this. You should reconsider.

Should you go down the opening principles route, which I think you should, you can start here www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening.

Good luck with your opening preparation. I think you have better ways to spend your study time myself but to answer your question about a universal opening system for black it'll most likely be a hypermodern complex. I'd either go with 1.d6 or 1.e6. If you play the 1.d6 route then you'd want to aim to have a pawn on g6, bishop on g7, knight on f6 and your other bishop can go to maybe g4 to pin the knight on f3 or d7. However I'd try for the queen knight to go to d7 if possible and support a e5 pawn push, so you could also delay your queen bishop and keep it on c8.

If you go the 1.e6 route then you will end up going for a French or queens gambit declined depending on if white plays 1.e4 or 1.d4. If he plays 1.e4, then you'll want to aim for the d5 square- knight on f6, bishop on e7, pawn on d5, Queen knight on d7 and your queen bishop can try to play on b7 or sit at home on c8 for a bit. Sometimes you may want to play c6. The idea is to gain control of the d5 square and then look to play either c5 or e5 to break the position open for you.


There are other systems and openings for sure but you will have a very tough time learning and knowing what set up works best against whites set up. Because you are giving what a free hand initially to develop how he wants, you'll come across a lot of different white set ups. But that may be a good thing for your development anyhow, even if you feel frustrated at times.

while i do agree with the other responses here, to answer your question, four knights and french are basic openings

The only generic black opening I can think of that can be played against virtually everything is the "Lion". Myself I'm not a big fan of anything generic, but for your purpose it may be not a bad choice.