how many openings should I learn to develop a solid repertoire?

At your level, all you need are opening principles.

Control the center.

Develop towards the center.

Castle.

Connect your rooks.

Youre losing games to players rated 900-1000.  Openings are not what you need to work on.

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

I am always wondering.. How.. How can a beginner decides to pick up and memorize openings, when he does not know which ones are suitable for him. To know, he must know his style. But to know his own style he must play hundreds, thousands of games with different openings. But, he is a beginner he loses games by pure blundering - giving away pieces. He can't even understand and apply strategy of the openings. More over his opponents almost never play exact lines. And even if they does.. when he is out of book, trouble starts anyway...

By the way i am surprised you picked the openings that are somehow simular, except french defense.

Took me thousand or more of blitz games and hundreds of hours watching/studying for myself to understand what kind  of player i am and which openings are best for me....

And yer i am not completely sure.

You should just be learning opening concepts.  For starters, a few of the openings you are trying to learn either aren't very good, or you are clueless as to when to use them.

Bird's Opening, first off, is just bad, and scores a whopping 46%, a HORRIBLE score for White, at the GM Level.  At your level, you don't need to be playing the best move of all to win, but you should at least be applying legitimate opening ideas that follow concepts of proper opening play, like 1.e4 or 1.d4, taking the center.

Secondly, you claim to know the Botvinnik Variation of the English Opening.  The Botvinnik is totally useless except in lines where Black plays an early e5 and fianchettos his King's Bishop.  For example, 1.c4 e5 2.g3 d6 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nc3 Bg7, then 5.e4 with d3 to come is fine.  But against the Symmetrical, where the Bishop has access to d4, or lines with an early Bc5 by Black, the Botvinnik is turrible!  

Play 1.d4 or 1.e4 instead of 1.f4, don't worry about theory, learn general concepts, like in d4 openings, don't block your c-pawn with the Kngiht, advance it first.  With King pawn Openings, develop the minor pieces, don't move the Queen out early, get yourself castled, etc.

For someone seeking help with openings, I usually bring up Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014).

http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html

I believe that it is possible to see a fair portion of the beginning of Tamburro's book by going to the Mongoose Press site.

https://www.mongoosepress.com/excerpts/OpeningsForAmateurs%20sample.pdf

Perhaps Fenix613 would also want to look at Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006).

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

"Each player should choose an opening that attracts him. Some players are looking for a gambit as White, others for Black gambits. Many players that are starting out (or have bad memories) want to avoid mainstream systems, others want dynamic openings, and others want calm positional pathways. It’s all about personal taste and personal need.

For example, if you feel you’re poor at tactics you can choose a quiet positional opening (trying to hide from your weakness and just play chess), or seek more dynamic openings that engender lots of tactics and sacrifices (this might lead to more losses but, over time, will improve your tactical skills and make you stronger)." - IM Jeremy Silman (January 28, 2016)

https://www.chess.com/article/view/picking-the-correct-opening-repertoire

http://chess-teacher.com/best-chess-openings/

https://www.chess.com/blog/TigerLilov/build-your-opening-repertoire

https://www.chess.com/blog/CraiggoryC/how-to-build-an-opening-repertoire

https://www.chess.com/article/view/learning-an-opening-to-memorize-or-understand

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-perfect-opening-for-the-lazy-student

Master One Opening First .

Low level players blow my mind these days.

I come to the forum read your post.

You ask for a solid repertoire.

Than start rattling off lines you play.

The sad part is you are not the only one doing this.

Lately, I have seen dozens of people do this in forums.

You are looking for a solid repetoire and you have no experience with the Italian Game?????

The Italian Game has been around for over 600 years!

You can't get any more Solid than that!

I don't even think it is possible to become great in chess with out having played this line.

At your rating, you need one opening as white (either e4 or d4) and an opening against d4 and e4 as black.  That's about it, which is 3 total openings.  Also agree that opening principles are more important.  The decision to play d4 or e4 should be based on style, preference, and what you already know.

I also really think you should avoid f4 and c4, given your rating.  They're advanced openings that require more general chess knowledge than you probably have.  Ditto for the dutch.  Without knowing lots of theory and chess principles, you can get blown away by these higher-risk openings, which is bad for your chess development.  ThrillerFan is right that at your level getting yourself developed, knowing some plans, and getting into the middlegame is what matters.

Interestingly, my repertoire is basically the same as yours.  I play the dutch, french, and occasionally the bird, although I mainly play d4 as white.  The french is fine (I've played it my whole chess career) but I'd start with the QGD, not the dutch, as black against d4.  It's more solid.

Disagree with X_Player that everyone needs to know the Italian Game.  I've never played e4 as white and never played e4/e5 with black and I'm doing okay 

Agreed...i have never played 1.e4, or 1...e5 in a tournament/serious game.  

Thanks Diakonia.  I was thinking about trying to learn e4 and maybe e4/e5 to try something new and improve my chess knowledge but I'm not sure how to go about learning them.  Most manuals teaching the very basics of an opening are written for total beginners to chess but more advanced books already assume you know a lot about the opening.  I'm sort of in between both of those things.  If you were going to learn e4 or e4/e5 to play in tournaments how do you think you'd go about it?

Keep typin 2 millions of words daily

Youre very welcome!

IF...and i must stress IF, because its not going to happen.  But...IF i did decide to play e4/e5.  I would do what i did when i learned to play what i play now.  

I would find GM games, put those games into my Chess Opening Wizard software.  

Learn the first 6 or so moves.

Understand the "why" behind those moves.

Understand the pawn structure(s).

Im a lowly class player.  Its a waste of my time to try and memorize openings 20+ moves deep.  As long as i understand the pawn structure, and piece placement im good.

Possibly helpful:

A Simple Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Sam Collins

http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/A_Simple_Chess_Opening_Repertoire_for_White.pdf

My First Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Vincent Moret

https://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/9033.pdf

Winning with the Slow (but Venomous!) Italian by Karsten Müller & Georgios Souleidis

https://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/9037.pdf

Playing 1.e4 - Caro-Kann, 1...e5 and Minor Lines by John Shaw

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Playing1e4CaroKannandothers-excerpt.pdf

The Four Knights: Move by Move by Cyrus Lakdawala (2012)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627104938/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen159.pdf

The Ruy Lopez: Move by Move by Neil McDonald (2011)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627022042/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen153.pdf

BAG OF NAILS.

Thanks all.  The issue with looking at GM games is that people around my level (class B) often play sidelines that aren't played by GMs.  I'm worried about getting to a tournament and seeing something after 5 moves that I've never seen before but is perfectly playable.  Obviously, if I play e4 I have to be prepared for e5, caro kann, french, scandinavian, alekhine, sicilian, plus weird stuff.  I'm also dubious of "repertoire books" because I've seen them before and haven't been that impressed.  For whatever reason, it seems like d4 was fairly easy for me to learn but e4 seems incredibly more complex and theoretical.  Any tips would be helpful

Openings have to suit personalities. You'll hate playing games if you don't enjoy the flow of your openings and every opening has its own distinctive flow. I watch Banter Blitz on Youtube to discover flow and the way the GM mind approaches. As for me, I play the English, the Sicilian Taimanov, and the Queen's Indian. All enjoyable and solid. That is basically it. I try to transpose when possible otherwise use basic principles. After this, it is all tactics and learning the extremely difficult endgame strategies.

I dont get this, you are almost 2100 on daily chess and you are asking about openings and repertoires? WUT?!

Know at least 1 defence for each move as your palm of your hand, then study other 2 openings for each move, and make sure to have general chess opening culture, you should be OK with that.

The below Quotes are 2 examples of players who disagreed with me.

They said they never played 1.e4 or 1...e5.

Take a very good look at these 2 players OP.

I would like to submit these 2 players as evidence to support my case:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Neither of these 2 players have a Title by there Chess.com name.

They are not great.

I rest my case.

Every Grand Master in existance has played 1.e4 in there life time.

They may not play it any more.

However, I assure you. They have tryed it. That is why they have a title next to there name and the above people who disagreed me do not!

As for me I refuse to play 1...e5.

Take a good long look at me OP

Exhibit C

That is why I don't have a title next to my name as well!

A repertoire isn't just a collection of openings you can play. It is a system to relate the lines to one another, and uses transposiiton as a tool to stay away from the lines you don't want to play and navigate towards positions you prefer for a particular game. It is an advanced concept that I think is way beyond the needs of most players who don't intent to play frequent tournaments at a good level. Even though I spent time working on such a thing for myself, it's way beyond me, and I don't struggle with the game because of my opening repertoire, I struggle because I don't see enough tactics and miss lines of play when calculating, and because I still lack ppositionnal understanding of a lot of lines I play. It would be pointless for me to refine my opening repertoire if I can't understand deeply all the lines I can consider transposing from one  into another. "learning openings" is not building an opening repertoire.

To get better at the game just play openings that requires you to improve on your main weaknesses. For me, the Gruenfeld is what I should focus on nowadays because I often miss the "tactical punch" time in an opening where you force everything to become very tactical in a split second, and still work with a lot of positionnal concepts. I suppose I should also work with the sicilian against e4.

Before that phase, most of my games were really lost by mistakes in the endgames. I worked on my endgame skills and I got up by around 150elo and still outplay my opponents during endgame most of the time. But I couldn't get up anymore because I would not get enough endgames to play against them because I did lose a lot during middlegames because I had hard to play positions, which meant my issue was to get a good position out of my openings.

If most of your games are decided by blunders, you won't improve drastically by learning new openings, you will improve by getting better at tactics, avoiding blunders, and punishing opposing blunders. When your games will be mostly decided by the quality of the position you get in the middlegame, it will be time to work on your openings.