Playing everything vs. Wide repertoire vs. Narrow repertoire

Playing everything vs. Wide repertoire vs. Narrow repertoire

For example for Black against 1.d4:
- Playing everything would be playing KID, Gruenfeld, Benoni, Benko, Nimzo, QID, QGD, Slav, Semi-Slav, QGA, each at roughly the same frequencies in which they appear in GM games databases.
- A wide repertoire would be for example playing the KID half of the time and playing the Gruenfeld the other half of the time.
- A narrow repertoire would be for example always playing the KID.

What are the advantages and disadvantages between each of these three approaches?

Which approach is the best?

Why is the approach of playing everything never mentioned? Is it a bad idea? Wouldn't it have benefits on the long term?

If I played everything, wouldn't I get crushed all the time each time I played a sharp tactical opening (Sicilian, Modern-Pirc, KID, Gruenfeld, Modern Benoni, Semi-Slav) because I wouldn't have as much knowledge of this opening as my more specialized opponents and in sharp tactical openings the player with the most knowledge generally gets a big opening advantage? If yes, then how about playing everything except sharp tactical openings?

It depends on whether you know enough to get yourself into trouble

I've played the grunfeld OTB without knowing more than basically 1 variation 8 moves deep. Since I didn't know enough to get into some tricky line, I just played some logical looking moves, got a slightly worse opening result, but that doesn't matter because the middlegame was rich and neither of us knew what was going on.

Stuff like that happens all the time.

The openings that trip me up are usually ones I've been trying to learn pretty well, so I get into some tricky sideline, and on move 15 I'm surprised, incorrectly try to use an idea or move order that doesn't work, and quickly lose. (or just, you know, I forgot the move order, played something out of order, so now I lose).

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Anyway, the more interesting topic is

One advantage is you learn a lot of different ideas... but for this to work it's not enough to just play a bunch of different openings randomly. Take the time to understand the main points of the middlegames and play the opening long enough to build up some experience. Having a wide knowledge of chess is useful because even totally unrelated positions can start becoming similar after a failed tactic, or bizarre maneuver by your opponent. Basically, when things get weird, it's not enough to only know the standard ideas of that particular opening.

Let's put a hundred empty water bottles in front of you. Your task is to fill every single one of them. It's OK to play around for a little bit and put 10mL in one bottle, 50mL in another and 202.74mL in a third bottle. This, however, is clearly not the most efficient solution. To get things done in a systematic way, you would like arrange the bottles into 10 ten-bottle groups, fill the bottles in each group one by one, and monitor your progress (say, 5 groups and 6 bottles) with ease.

The same method applies to learning chess openings. It's fun to play whatever opening that pops up in your mind. But if you're looking for actual improvement, a systematic approach is more advisable. First, select a group of openings you would like to play, and "fill" them by understanding the essential ideas and playing a good number of games. Then you may move on to the next opening if you wish to, although I would recommend using the same repertoire until you reach 2000.

I don't see the point of playing both the Grunfeld and KID for an amateur player. It is much more sensible to give yourself the choice between a solid opening where theory doesn't play such a big role and a sharp, theoretical opening, like playing some quiet line of the Slav and the KID or switching between the Bogo-Indian and Modern Benoni after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 2. Nf3 according to circumstances.

Evans gambit, kings gambit, Halloween gambit , Marshall attack is THE repertoire for low rated dudes

Basically just play gambits for quick wins till you reach a good tasting

I meant rating

You can start with a narrow repertoire. If you are active in tournament situations where you face the same players again and again you widden you repertoire to beat them.

Combining the KID and the Gruenfeld might have been a bad example for the wide repertoire. Instead I should have said for example the QGD and the Nimzo, gaining the ability to avoid the Exchange Variation of the QGD by playing a Nimzo instead. Having a wide repertoire would permit me to be able to avoid certain variations if I knew my opponent played them. And having a wide repertoire probably also has other advantages...

Wide repertoire means too much time spent on learning and studying openings.  Not good.  Rather learn tactics and endgames and positional.analysis.

You've been making these sorts of posts for a really long time iirc. 

I think you should play what makes you happy and try to improve at chess. Don't play stuff that's refuted, plan out your repertoire in a lot of detail if you want but it probably won't help your results as much as you think/want (unless you're facing competition that is a lot stronger than I think you are facing), and work on your game. 

Honestly I don't think that's very useful unless you're a semi-pro playing the same well prepared opponents week after week grinding out OTB tournaments.

For normal players like us, the benefit is you gain flexibility in the middlegame. Learning an opening is a lot more than memorizing lines, to learn an opening properly you learn the typical ideas of the middlegame (structures, piece placement, maneuvers, ideas, all that stuff) and why they work.

So when you learn multiple openings, you become more versatile in the middlegame.

Usually players ask odd question like this when they're wanting a magic bullet. E.g. "if I read _____ # of books per month, how long until I'm a master." Or like you "if I memorize _____ # of openings, will I suddenly be good?" The answer is no. There's no magic bullet. Memorizing openings will only improve your results if you're regularly losing in the opening due to botched move orders.

Perhaps having a repertoire would limit your exposure to the different patterns and ideas, and thus it would slow your long term rate of improvement. We should play every single openings in order to study chess in all its facets and get an unbiased complete knowledge of chess.

Well you seem to have your mind made up then don't you? You got your answer to your question - from yourself. Wonderful, nice to see everything wrapped up so neatly. 

Playing every opening at the same frequency? That's just psychopathic. If you're playing a different opening every time you won't be good in or understand a single one of them relative to your strength - of course a very strong player will have some understanding of any normal position but by not concentrating on any one he/she will limit their development. An opening like the Catalan takes a lifetime to understand, it's not something you just take up.       

Narrow vs wide repertoire is another discussion that may actually be interesting, not this.  

  

Ideally this is indeed the best way to study openings. Unfortunately we can't play chess 24/7. The limited time we can spend on chess propels us to find a time-efficient method to learn the game. Repertoires, particularly the narrow ones, are made so as to reduce workload on openings. Not to mention that we need to study the middlegame and the endgame as well.

Another advantage of playing all openings is that it would make you able to understand all openings, to better understand the games of other players, to be able to speak about all openings and to be able to teach all openings. Concerning this last point: When you have a student who tells you he wants you to teach him some openings, but you don't know these openings, what do you do? You have to learn these openings yourself before you can teach them to your student. And when you have many students that each want you to teach them different openings, you'll have to learn all openings in existence... or you'll have to impose your own specific repertoire to all your students, but some of them might not appreciate that.

 

The students or noobs dont run the show. Teach them openings in terms of chess, or they can find someone else to recite their memorization to. If someone is going to rattle off first 10 moves of the Najadorf Im not going to be impressed in the least. Now if they rattle off the 10 moves complete with the 50 parameters for each move and their thoughts, then Im like wow...you need a new coach lol.

Nonsense. 

You don't play anymore, at least not here, so this whole discussion is pointless.

I wrestle with the same question of wide versus narrow repertoire (of course, trying to pick an “opening” on moves 3-5 might not count as choosing a “repertoire”), but if you are going to go wide, then why try playing any repertoire at all? You can’t learn them all, so why not just play whatever you want based purely on your own instincts and assessment, then post-mortem evaluating your move choices? This would coordinate help your positional assessment and candidate move selection, which are more generalizable and fundamental skills than learning a specific repertoire(s).

It sounds like your goal is to be increase your chances of winning no matter what type of position, but whatever specific repertoire you play, eventually you will find someone who can play against it, so why not go more general, which may help you likewise become less predictable?