Why I always play the same opening (logic & feel)

This is not a ground breaking discovery or even a new approach, but here's a short story of something I've tried this year.  And yes, opening are not more important than other parts of the game, thus I spend a balanced amount of time between the 3 phases of the game, but my 2017 New Year's resolution was to develop a near-universal opening for Black and White.

My reasoning was this:  Even if my equally experienced online opponent knew I was going to open with d4 and Nf3 next, there is little chance his last 100 games as black were played against d4. But my last 100 games as white where! Therefore, any continuation should be more familiar to me than to him (everything else being equal...like experience, rating, etc.)

The logic goes like this:  If you're someone who can recall the optimal next move  in say 50 positions (defined by you & your personal choice of engine, etc.)  would you want those 50 positions to be divided into 2 different openings (25 each) or all 50 within a single opening (and it's side lines).  I decided to do the latter and am glad I did.  Now when I say optimal I mean a combination of optimal evaluation + familiarity.  For example, if you're building an opening and you've found that 60% of the time Bd3 is optimal and Be2 is optimal 25% of the time, you may find that Bd3 can be played 70% of the time with very little loss is evaluation vs Be2.  This is exactly what I did because it allowed me to narrow the variation of positions I was getting in by move 7 or 8. This approach then allowed me to focus on the DEEPER meanings, i.e. strengths and weaknesses of key positions in more narrow middle game situations.

This was the only way I could prune unnecessary variations from my own decision tree.  For example, from my hours of building repertoire prep using Chess Position Trainer, I discovered that I can play Bd3 about 80% of time (exceptions include c5 and g6), instead of constantly trying to decide between Be2 and Bd3. 

Unlike professional players, we non-professionals have the luxury of nearly always playing with new or random opponents which makes this idea even more logical in my opinion.  But like i said earlier, even if they know our first few move bias, we've played it more often then they have so how could choosing an opening I'm less familiar with be an advantage?

 I know the anecdotal arguments against this approach. For example, this could be seen as boring or not in the spirit of chess, or building dependencies, etc.  But I feel the opposite. Given I can only study chess a few hours a week I have a choice of how I spend that time.  I could go deeper and deeper within a narrower lane (which is still quite wide given after move 10 I still have few identical games) or....spend that time trying to learn positions speckled across various openings which I'm more likely to forget? 

Anyway, I know many will disagree with this approach and argue on the merits of becoming more "well rounded" (and I respect those opinions), but I found this approach works for me and it has helped me improve my rating this year.  Another thing that helped is that I created puzzles in my blog just for me and within my single opening to get even more photographic powers 

 These days I tend to play on other sites because I like to play 20 games as white then 20 as black to further this type of depth and memory. 

 So if you're a player like me and like to open the same way every time please let me know what your results and thoughts are!  Thanks.

As a USCF A player, my games are rarely, if ever decided in the opening.  

Where in my post did I imply groundbreaking discovery or new to the game of chess?  And where in my post did I say the ratio of time I spend in the opening vs middle game or end game?  

Tell me about it!  Maybe I need to go to sensitivity training

Another key part of my overly long post  "These days I tend to play on other sites"

sure, but there are variations. For example if 50% of games are e4 and 50% are d4 and 100% of my openings vs e4 are sicilian but only 30% of your games with e4 are sicilian i would know more

This is interesting. So Kadenrashid, in this hypothetical scenario, 50 of your last 100 games as Black, White would have opened with d4. I'm with you there.  You would have replied with let's say a standard reply you always use.  That reply would only be say 25% of what I saw in my last 100.  At this point you're in a position you've seen 50 times and I've seen it 25 times by the end of turn 1. 

So now turn 2 starts, and it's white's turn.  I play a move I always use in this situation so I'm still at 25.  But now my reply is only half of what you see in this position so you're at 25 too. Now it's Blacks turn etc. etc.  I'm not sure how the tree waddles down into lower and lower numbers but the different in experience gets closer and closer and possibly white has seen more?  This is open to debate, but a good comment. Thanks!

It makes little sense for an amateur to become 'well-rounded' in terms of all openings.  Why learn 1.d4 White openings if you only play 1.e4, and vice versa?  And here, that doesn't mean you study all 1.e4 openings, or you devote equal time to all openings.  If you see the Sicilian every other game and the Alekhine once every 20 games (say), it only makes sense to study the Sicilian and learn just enough Alekhine to get by.  Your approach sounds entirely logical to me.

As amateurs, our study time is limited, and we all know the opening is the least important element to study.  If playing the same openings all the time means we can spend less of our precious time on openings and more on everything else, it sounds like the best approach, in all honesty.

I've recently arrived at the same conclusion.  I play my main options in 80% of my games, with a secondary option for the final 20% just for variety's sake.  That seems a good fit for learning while staying fresh, not making chess feel like work.  We'll see if it works, for both of us!

1. I was clarifying where i play.

2. I was clarying what section i play in.

3. I was answering the OP questions, that at the level i play, Openings rarely if ever decide the game.  

I think your arguments are valid.

Just for curiosity, what lines do you play with white and black?

Making a statement like: "No one cares what country you play in" is just plain ignorant.  I doubt you speak for everyone.  

"Saying that you play in the US does not clarify what section you play in."

I clarified what section i play in.  

This post makes sense.  However, I am toying with the idea of learning a cursory amount about the Sicilian and the King's Indian Defense because so many GM games have those openings.