Need a white repertoire

I just realized How Useless I am with white against decent players, I have no repertoire and often get surprised by Garbage. Can someone help me?

Queen's Gambit. Very fun and aggressive. But if you fianchetto the bishop you can convert it to a sort of King's Indian + Sicilian kinda thing XD

I already have QG

I play many lines as white if you could be more specifec I might be able to get you a opening.

- Reti w/ the Catalan
- Van Geet 
- Trompowsky + Veresov, QGD Modern, or Torre / London transpositions via 3. c3 (it's up to you how you play the Trompowsky to transpose into these lines)

Those are my recommendations for white.

I would play e4 if not for the sicilian. The Van Geet gives you an e4-type game where you can avoid a normal sicilian. For d4/c4 - I think the Reti is a better way to reach those positions since it bypasses a large number of blacks defenses.

In general, try to maintain some element of surprise in your opening as white. Don't just feed right into blacks prepared lines.

This sounds a bit rac!st..

You're an idiot...

Start/restart with the London system if you are a d4 player. Very stable against all black´s answers.

Check early c5 answers especially.

First of all, I'm going to reprimand you for talking down on yourself. Getting surprised happens to grandmasters, and 1600 is no place to be calling yourself useless. You got this, okay?

Second, my advice is to play your openings like you play your middlegames. I'm 1900 Rapid and my "repertoire" as White doesn't have a single opening longer than 5 moves (if you don't count knowing forced mate lines in a couple of trappy variations). Seriously, I play the Ruy Lopez as in 3. Bb5 and then I play on instinct from there. My anti-Caro-Kann prep consists of a queen trade on move 4. I play the Catalan and London to spice things up, but I still have no clue what you're actually supposed to DO in the Catalan. Against the e6 Sicilian, I'm literally out of prep on move 3.

That said, none of that matters. At the end of the day, if you're in a +0.3 position which you know the plans and ideas for and in which you are comfortable, you're more likely to win than if you're in a +0.6 situation in which you're uncomfortable with no clue where to proceed. This is how I make my killing. I take players into slightly suboptimal positions that aren't clear, maybe pawn down for activity, maybe losing castling rights intentionally to force an overextension, maybe a cheeky sacrifice for an attack, maybe allowing an attack while simultaneously staging my own. Sure, I go down in flames in a LOT of games, and there are more than a few where I have to orchestrate a forced draw to not get blown off the board, but that's my style, and I'm comfortable in it. I simply can't play symmetrical positions in which everything gets traded down into a calm-and-objectively-equal rook and pawns endgame. It's my biggest weakness as a chess player.

You have to know yours. If you think you're not too great with your openings, what are you good with? If it's tactical middlegames, find a couple of tabiya positions (moves 3-7) that are likely to lead to those and then just play chess from those. If it's endgames, Endgame Offer Caro-Kann, the Berlin Wall (moves 4 and 7 respectively), et cetera will be your best friends. Just find what suits you best, screw the theory, and play what benefits you. Opening principles are great and all, as is the ability to know when to break them. What's better is knowing how to execute plans/ideas and (and this is the important part) create them naturally.

Just play solid moves with an opening that has your style (i.e. classic vs modern, closed vs open, etc).

I'm higher rated than you an my opening choice has almost no relevance to my play. I have played lines that I know nothing about, sometimes for fun only, and do almost exactly the same as I do with my favorite openings.

I don't get the problem. Whatever you play is your repertoire. So when you sit down and start a game, what do you start with? If your problem is that black puts up a fuss and fights back, you just need to improve your skills and prepare better for what black does.

One person previous mentioned Trompowsky and Veresov - Add the Torre Attack to that and you have basically what I, an over-the-board expert, plays, which goes to show its validity.

Here is basically what you'd have:

1.d4 and now:

1...d5 2.Nc3. Now if 2...Nf6, then 3.Bg5. If then 3...e6, then 4.e4 is the French. Otherwise you have independent lines of the Veresov. If 2...e6 or 2...c6, you have the French and Caro-Kann with 3.e4.

1...Nf6 2.Bg5 and now:

2...d5 3.Nc3 is the Veresov, see 1...d5.

2...e6 3.Nd2 and now if 3...d5, then 4.e3 with Bd3 and Ngf3, you are in a Torre Attack. If not 3...d5, then in most cases you can play e4 without giving up the Bishop pair.

2...c5 3.Bxf6 and then 3...exf6 4.e3 and 5.Nc3 or 3...gxf6 4.d5.

2...Ne4 3.h4

If 1...f5, have a line against the Dutch. I play the Staunton Gambit, but the 2.Nc3 lines may be more consistent with the rest of it, or 2.Bg5.

1...e6, 1...d6, 1...c6, 1...b6, 1...g6, then 2.e4. The French and Caro you have lines from the Veresov. The e4-Modern and Owen's are easy. Against 1...d6 2.e4 Nf6, you can play 3.Nc3, but I play 3.f3 and wind up in a Saemisch Structure against either the Kings Indian, Old Indian, or Benoni.

This may sound like a lot, but it really isn't as it avoids all the highly dense theoretical openings, like the following:

Sicilian

Ruy Lopez

Italian

Queen's Gambit Accepted

Queen's Gambit Declined

Slav

Semi-Slav

Nimzo-Indian

Queen's Indian

Catalan

Grunfeld

Classical Kings Indian

Here is an absolute crushing of the Caro-Kann - funny part is, he normally plays Sicilian against 1.e4, and I have gotten opponents in French positions that don't know the French at all, and some of them, even in the 1800 to 2100 range, didn't even realize they had transposed to the French, specifically in the move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.Nc3 e6 4.e4 or 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bg5 e6 4.e4. In those cases where they have no clue, you will almost always get the Burn (4...dxe4).

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/the-caro-kann-sucks