Historic Hypermodern Openings and Solid Historic Lines for Tournament Play

I'll take a wild guess, perhaps something in the Old Indian family? (which I like to play), maybe a Janowski Old Indian?  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 3. Nc3 Bf5 with the short term goal of impeding e4 by White.

That's like Butch Harmon coaching a Sunday golfer on how to control ball flight when they can't even make clean contact with the ball.

Weren't you going to play in MC2 ?

With prizes there likely to be higher, shouldn't you be keeping your opening preparation a secret until then ?

As for your question, I'd even recommend an opening that is not being considered completely solid anymore by some players: The King's Gambit.

Spassky loved it, and even today it is being played occasionally. Ivanchuk has victories against Nakamura and Giri with it although these might have been on faster time controls iirc.

If you had spent 14 months on preparing that together with a GM coaching you, I severely doubt anyone in the U1600 section could play accurately enough against it.

David - It's not like you are playing for the world championship.  First off, as already mentioned, openings don't mean anything in the U1600 section.  Secondly, how many people do you think are using chess.com for their research (It's sad if they are)?  And third, in the rare case that someone read this thread, researched that you are David Milliern, and was paired against you, that they will have specifically prepared for you?  It's not like pairings come out early (except maybe the open section).  Unless you are perfect after 4 or more rounds, most won't try to figure out their next opponent because of byes and stuff like that.

So trying to answer your question with this crypitc description of what you play is ludicrious.  Plus, novelties don't come at move 1.  

I could tell you right now that I play 1.e4 as White, Grunfeld and Dutch against 1.d4, and the Najdorf and Taimanov against 1.e4, and you still wouldn't be able to prepare for me in the time between when you figured out that you are playing me and the time that we start clocks.  

For example, let's say you are a d4 player, and you play the Classical Exchange against the Grunfeld, which is the line 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 O-O 10.O-O, how are you going to prepare for each of the following in 20 minutes, along with the possible novelties within each line?

10...b6

10...e6

10...Qc7

10...Bd7

10...Bg4 followed by 11...Bd7

10...Bg4 followed by 11...Na5

The answer?   You can't!

I had a buddy who won that section with the Bird pretty convincingly. Openings are definitely not going to be the issue when you go. Avoiding theory and getting into the middlegame quickly will certainly help though. That probably goes double for MC2 since your opponents might be a little better than their ratings. If I did some prep I'd basically avoid anything GMs are playing or is popular unless it's just giving you a safe advantage or something. Go into stuff that requires good technique or some kind of understanding beyond memorising lines. 

An obvious example might be the queen's gambit exchange or if you want to throw pieces around then something like the Evan's gambit or the bishop's opening. You could also just pick a GM and use what they play in simuls LOL. Even Kasparov plays stuff like the London or Trompowsky in those.

Hang on — you've been studying theory for 14 months to avoid theory?!  

The U1600 World Open is big money. I'm sure there are lots of players with low ratings who have prepared like Kasparov to pull down some green.

Under 1600 Section: $10000-5000-2500-1300-900-700-600-500-400-400, top U1500 $1600-800.

http://www.chesstour.com/wo15.htm

This was the $10,000 payday for whatever Michael De La Maza did with his Rapid Chess Improvement method -- either the result of going at tactical puzzles several hours a day for months and months or wearing a baggy turtleneck sweater in the summer and smuggling in a computer of some sort.

Fischer played a famous game with it against Andersson in 1970. I remember being shocked as a kid to see Robert "The Best By Test" Fischer playing 1.b3.

Some attribute this game as an element to the rise of interest in the Hedgehog.

Okay, well I will say that ThrillerFan got one thing wrong in his post- if I see that my pairing is up in an open tournament half an hour or even ten minutes before a game, there's a good chance I might google "(insert opponent's name here) chess" and also "site:chess.com (insert opponent's name here)" to see if he has a chess.com account or if any games of his have been posted that could be used for last-minute prep. This has been useful for me in the past, lol. But I am playing in U2100 or U2000 a lot, not U1600 where it won't matter much.

I agree with others who've said that at your level, studying openings is kind of useless.

I don't think commenters here get that the World Open U1600 has a $10,000 prize. Participants will not be typical U1600 players.

I expect the winners will be playing close to 2000 strength. They will be people who have played USCF tournaments sparingly to keep their ratings low and in the meantime will be studying and practicing hard outside official venues.

Not necessarily. I know a person who won over $5,000 at a recent World Open and he is a tournament regular who plays in all the big opens in DC, Baltimore, and VA.

i played in the u1600 world open 2009, went 7/9.  had a uscf quick rating of 1900 at the time.  2 players who finished 7 and 7.5/9 were 1900+ a few months after that tournament; it is not a very easy section.  it's good to have a plan going into the middlegame. in general the main lines are best but at some pt u just want a position where u can continue to play logical chess.  it helps to have confidence in the positions u play to find the right plans when required.  just an fyi, the opening was not the deciding factor in any of my games in that tournament.  my most important wins in that tournament were as black in the closed KID structure.