John Watson

John Watson has an excellent book called A Strategic Chess Opening for White. He also wrote a plethora of other highly acclaimed opening books. He is great at explaining the reasoning behind certain moves.

Does anyone know if he wrote a book describing a complete opening repertoire for Black?

Thanks. I want a complete repertoire I can use for Black against ANYTHING. I see your note about responding to 1.d4. Where does he talk about this, or does he? Does he discuss other openings as well?

His opening repertoire for White covers EVERYTHING, which I was hoping he would do for Black.

Not entirely in one book, but the 4th edition of his long-running Play The French came out a couple years ago, and he wrote a repertoire book on the Benoni (a while ago though), so a very-close-to-complete Black rep. could be formed by piecing those two together. 

This is a well known move order transposition where many French defence players will play e6 in response to d4 in the hope that White decides that they want to play the French defence as White rather than a d4 opening. There is no more to it than that.

see "A Rock Solid Opening Repertoire for Black" by Eingorn for further information.

John Watson was also Sherlock Holmes right hand man

it must be noted that 1 d4 players hardly ever reply 2 e4 against e6. 2 c4 or Nf3 will be way more common, and then you pretty much just have to transpose back into d4 lines. there's no such thing as an one-fits-all solution as black.

that said, it's always important to be aware of transpositional possibilities within your repertoire so that you don't get conned into playing a line you don't like and panic.

I'm getting some excellent advice here, so thanks. The pawn book was actually on my to-read list already. I've heard very good things.

I had also previously made note of A Rock Solid Opening Repertoire for Black as well as one or two of the French books by Watson. You guys are helping to pull it all together though.

That being said, I do not understand why Watson has not released a counterpart book to his highly acclaimed A Strategic Chess Opening for White. It would be nice to have it all put together and explained by someone like Watson. I may have to Frankenstein this myself if he doesn't get his act together. I sent him an email, as he gives it out in some articles and invites question (well, an email to "him" at a publishing company). The book would undoubtedly sell.

yeah playing "sister openings" (like french/qgd, caro/slav) is pretty reasonable. of course there still are significant differences though, because white has his pawn skeleton too

@lnyustisia: Can you elaborate a little on the sister openings post, and some different options you see for White and for Black repertoires?

@morris_7: I though Watson preferred to open 1.d4...2.c4 as White, going into the QGD (I could be mistaken). Of course, what appears on chessgames.com for a player for White is sometimes, in part, a function of what the player's opponent (Black) decided to suck him into.

Exactly what I was going to say.

It's a funny coincidence that both John Littlewoods (the chess player and the mathematician) both had E. as a middle initial. When I first heard about the chess player John Littlewood, I got confused as I had read a lot about the mathematician.

well... it's probably better for you to look into it yourself for a better explanation lol.

let's say, take the caro structure after dxe4, and the slav structure after dxc4. in both cases you have a white pawn on d4 and a black pawn on c6.
what's often (one) desirable plan for black? to try to engineer c5 or e5, getting more space for his pieces and challenging white's central dominance.

so, since the structure is exactly the same on black's side, can't black just dish out the same moves against e4 and d4? no, because white has a structure and plans too, so the methods that the players use to achieve their goals will be different. like, in the slav, white will have a half-open c-file (which is closed in the caro), making a move like Qc7 much more desirable in the latter.

i suck at explaining omg, i should also have said something about how pieces interact with the pawn structure (the latter defines the former) and uh, there probably was something else as well. but this will have to do -.-

as for "repertoire options", umm... do what i say and not what i do :D what i say is to pick one good repertoire book for each opening that you want to use, and stick with it. what i actually do is to half-study a ton of openings and change rep every month :D

@Optimissed: Is that Pachman book a great book or something? How does it relate?

So a yellow book in the 80s is the best repertoire book you have ever had, but you can't play what it suggests? OK, I'll ask. Why not if it's so darn good?

@Inyustisia: OK, you lost me a little bit there, but I'm not that advanced and I am a bit tired and stoopid right now. What is it, exactly, that you are recommending for White and also for Black? And what do you do? I guess I could buy some specific books for the openings I choose -- not sure which series is the best...The Starting Out series maybe?

So just as an idea, what were you thining for when I am White? Caro-Kann and QGD?

And when I am Black? Slav and Ruy Lopez?

His video games are phenomenal.

>> Maybe it makes a lot of sense to play the Sicilian, the English and the Benoni.

Which for when I am White, and which for when I am Black? Which do I play depending on what my opponent does?

I know a little. I think the Sicilian you are recommending for when I am Black and White plays 1.e4? Which flavor of Sicilian? Najdorf?

let's say, you want to play the french and the qgd against e4 and d4. so get a good book on the french, a good book on the qgd and use only them as your opening source until you feel very comfortable in the opening phase of your games. (that's why the books should be good)
only after you get that down then you bother looking around for opinions from other authors, extra material on annoying sidelines and such.

all the openings you mentioned are for the black side :P caro and french are against e4, slav and qgd are against d4.
since both the caro and the slav go ..c6 ..d5 and both the french and the qgd go ..e6 ..d5, they are sister openings and picking one of these pairs can be a good approach to building a repertoire, like morris said.