What's Your Repertoire, and why do you play it?

Colle as White.  French or QGD as black.  People hate to play me.  

I forgot to mention, against the Petrof I play Nc3 trying to provoke Nc6 and in the Four Knights I play the Halloween Gambit.

I play scotch game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4) because (as has been said above) the lines are easy to remember and has open lines.

I used to play italian game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4) because the lines were also easy to remember and offered good chances but I stopped because I disliked the line 3... Bc5. It also helped me with my smith-morra gambit :)

Against sicillian, I play the smith-morra gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3) because you get  a great lead in tempo, you have the diagonals free for bishops and your queenside knight out, while it looks like black only has a missing c pawn. If black doesn't cover his/her weaknesses quick, they get in trouble! I also like to transpose into an italian game with this if they play e5. This is, easily, my favorite opening and all of my friends hate it :D

Against french I play advanced variation because it's fairly simple.


As black, against e4 I play petroff/petrov defense (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6) because it's an equal game and there's really nothing outright wrong with it.

Against d4 I play nimzo indian (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb5) because it's a very solid defense for black and you end up hammering on white's weak  doubled pawn.

Just now facing 1.e4 for the first time on this site.

1...c5 2.Bc4.

As white, I usually play the Bird and queen pawns opening. The Bird because many players don't use the sharp and dangerous From Gambit, and also because it's quite originial. I was bored with e4, so f4 was a good solution. With d4 I really like the Catalan because of the fianchetto's bishop pressure on the long diagonal which really tortures black position

As black, in response to e4 I usually play the sicilian Sveshnikov, because of it's dynamism, it offers good counterplay. In response to d4, the modern Benoni for the sharpness and the complications of the games