Opening Systems for White and Black

I believe I read Susan Polgar learned using the Colle-Zukertort system at White, and was successful with it I was thinking of implementing it in some games.

Is that the "best" opening system for White? What is recommended for Black as a system? I'm not sure what she used for Black.

back in the 40s through 70s, Purdy suggested using the Colle, the French, and either the Tarrasch Defense structure or the Orthodox QGD structure (...d5, ...e6, ...Nf6, ...Be7, ...0-0) possibly followed up by the fianchetto of the queen's bishop

That suggestion has been more or less repeated by many strong players since, including Susan and also Jeremy Silman among many others.

Susan has also suggested playing the King's Indian, and I believe that remains her main suggestion as a first complete opening repertoire ,,, Colle, Colle-Zukertort, or London as White, and as Black against 1.e4 the French, and against almost everything else, the King's Indian Defense.

Another good choice instead of playing the French and QGD as Black is to play the Caro-Kann and Slav.

My simple opening repertoire and the one I play almost exclusively nowadays is Mason's Opening (the London setup with 2.Bf4) as White, Scandinavian Defense against 1.e4 the Dutch against 1.Nf3, 1.d4, and 1.c4, and straightforward principled play against everything else.

Thanks for the info. Another keeper post thanks to you (I still have some others by you saved from years ago). How did you decide upon the repertoire you are playing almost exclusively, and are there GMs or others whom you are emulating?

I think that one would have a difficult time finding a titled player who would call it “best”, but I imagine that many would consider it to be a respectable choice as part of the repertoire of an amateur.

There are many suggestions out there. One is advocated in the book, Play 1...d6 Against Everything.

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9051.pdf

In Winning Chess Openings, Seirawan suggested the Pirc and the King’s Indian.

@kindaspongey   Oh that's your book? We were just discussing it in a group I'm in. Some guy was raving about it. It's not a "system," but it sounds interesting.

That's like saying the best way to mince garlic is the one I am most familiar with...which happens to be using a grater. That's an acceptable method, but not to any chef (even a non-pro) worth his salt.

...or that leads to positions with which you are most comfortable, absolutely agreed, and THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT.

In the initial post, I assumed (perhaps erroneously?) an implicit distinction between "opening system" and "opening". That is the context within which I frame my responses.

Ken Smith (of Chess Digest and Smith-Morra fame) used the term "forcing opening repertoire" instead of system.

To speak of a "best" system is, as IM pfren suggested, missing the point. Every playable opening played well by both sides will result in a more or less equal position sooner or later. The important question for most players is which ones lead to positions you like and play well. (For top level competition, the important consideration probably swings more to the sooner/later question, since it's hard to win against opponents who make almost no errors and it's easy for them to avoid errors when they're not under pressure.)

These systems are suggested as a means of getting a player out of the opening alive and more or less well and into a (presumably well known) sufficiently playable middlegame position.

They are not suggested as a competitive repertoire for candidate masters and/or above, though they are not unplayable at that level.

When deciding on your "forcing opening repertoire", you should have already had some experience trying out the main variations of the major openings for both colors, in order to gain some sense of preference. As long as you have a lot of games under your belt, you're ready to choose your repertoire from among the suggestions out there.

Here is how to choose an opening repertoire:

As White you will choose ONE system/first move. You have three main choices to start with:

1. Choose to play one of the four most popular first moves: 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.Nf3, or 1.c4 and prepare specific lines against each of your opponent's possible responses.
2. Choose to play 1.d4, 1.c4, or 1.Nf3 as the beginning to a more or less universal system against all Black options. (1.d4: Colle, Colle-Zukertort, London, Torre, Veresov, etc; 1.c4: Botvinnik or Staunton setup, etc; 1.Nf3: KIA, Nimzowitsch Attack, etc.)
3. Choose to play an "irregular" opening to make sure the opening goes your way no matter what. (1.g3, 1.b3, 1.f4, 1.Nc3, 1.d3, 1.e3, 1.b4, 1.g4, etc.)

As Black you will choose ONE response to 1.e4 and another to meet the closed openings, or even possibly all others. Again, you have a general choice to make among four options:

1. Prepare a preferred response to each of White's first move choices.
2. Choose a preferred response to 1.e4, a response that can handle closed openings (1.d4, 1.Nf3, and 1.c4), and if that response can't also handle the rest, something principled and classical against the rest.
3. Similar to (2) above, but choose a sibling opening approach, where you aim for the same basic structure regardless. (French and QGD, Caro-Kann and Slav, Pirc-Robatsch and KID, etc.)
4. Choose an irregular opening that can meet all openings. (King's Fianchetto Defense, Queen's Fianchetto Defense, Franco-Benoni, 1...Nc6, 1...d6, etc.)

A top level professional player should probably choose option 1 in both cases. The systems based opening repertoire involves choosing either option 2 or 3 as White, and one of options 2, 3, or 4 as Black. Even some professionals (not at the top level) have chosen a pragmatic, systems approach.

Make your choices now ... will it be 1, 2, or 3 as White, and as Black will it be 1, 2, 3, or 4?

Then which specific openings? Well, you presumably have seen enough recommendations; eliminate the ones you don't like for whatever reason, and then if you can't decide which to choose, flip a coin or roll the dice or whatever, then stick with the choices you've made until some distant future you cannot yet predict. (You sabotage yourself if you already at this stage consider replacing this or that variation, playing this or that other opening, etc. - Commit to playing your chosen openings 90% of the time from now on, without thinking of the time when this may change, because it may never change.)

I eventually chose the Scandinavian and Dutch because it was a recommended starter repertoire in the ICS course (though I chose the old standard 3...Qa5 instead of their recommended 3...Qd6 after some months of trial), and I have since come to prefer these choices.

I was originally a 1.e4 zealot. I eventually chose Mason's Opening at a time when I was studying James Mason's games (don't waste your time - he doesn't do so well in most of the games that are available in the DBs, even though he was one of the very top players at one point) and books on chess (do bother, if you appreciate old literature and/or general chess manuals), and then "Win with the London" came out, recommending the London with 2.Bf4. Oddly, working on this system has allowed me to finally "perfect" my 1.e4 repertoire, which always had a few holes in it. Either the London really suits me, or I "grew into it" and it suits me now so I still use it in preference over 1.e4, which is definitely my "better" opening in terms of maximizing opening advantage. There are still some variations that I am uncomfortable with, but you can't have it your way all the time.

That brings up an important point: don't imagine that you're going to be ecstatic from the start about every variation in your opening repertoire, especially if you take a systems approach - you won't be! There will be certain lines that make you uncomfortable, that you have bad results with, etc. Just stick it out, keep learning from your losses, and with time, those may become the lines you are happiest to see over the board. Then again, you may never grow to like them.

Note that I have experience playing many other openings, and I don't always play these three. For instance, though I don't recommend this as best practice, I have an equally strong and complete 1.e4 repertoire that I currently use about 25% of the time, and I don't play much below my best when I defend 1.e4 with either the Sicilian (Accelerated Dragon or so-called Classical) or with 1...e5 or against 1.d4 with some form of QGD, but I also enjoy the KID, in spite of my atrocious results with it against strong players.

I wish I could go back and spend more time in the beginning playing a wider variety of openings, and then settling on my London, Scandinavian, and Dutch earlier, and sticking with that. I think I could be even stronger now had I not wasted so much time "working on" (that is to say, messing around with) so many other different openings.

I am also assuming a distinction between an opening system and an opening. I'm trying to play everything, but I find that I rely on the opening database a lot and would like to familiarize myself with some systems for OTB play. Hey, If Bill gates (who is around 1700 I think) had an opening system down, he probably would have been able to hold Magnus off for more than 12 seconds lol

I never set out to emulate any GMs, aside from maybe James Mason, who suggested in his manual from around 1900 to learn one perhaps lesser known opening line and make it your own, and who did so in many of his own games with 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 (suggested way back in the first works on chess, by the way).

The Scandinavian was a suggestion of the ICS "GM course" as a stopgap choice before spending more time developing a "stronger" repertoire.

Actually, I'd never thought much of the opening, not because of the erroneous claim (or flat out lie) that after 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 Black has "lost a tempo" that has been repeated by many, many great players, but just because it had always been so easy for me to play against.

Ditto for the Dutch.

There happen to be some great books on these openings. I've mentioned Win with the London System. by Johnsen and Kovacevic. For the Scandinavian there is Starting Out: The Scandinavian by Houska and the excellent The Modern Scandinavian, Vol 2 by Wahls, Mueller, and Langrock. For the Dutch, I use mainly the repertoire provided by ICS, supplemented with the excellent books Win with the Stonewall Dutch by Johnsen and Bern and The Killer Dutch by Williams.

I don't believe there is a single great player that plays this particular repertoire. I presume that most players of one of these think that at least one of the other two are garbage. For example, Simon Williams, who has become my hero of the Dutch, seems to think that the Scandinavian is as terrible as most GMs think the Dutch is.

I LOVE playing two perfectly sound defenses that everyone has been conditioned to disrespect. My opponents begin by underestimating me. I'm not saying that either of these openings is necessarily risky, but the Dutch in particular has a lot of risky variations, and I manage to play the Scandinavian in an amazingly dodgy fashion (I like to play the so-called Viking setup), taking the whole give squares to get squares line to its absurd limits, maybe beyond, depending on your point of view.

For the most part, my defined repertoire as White is designed with maximum solidity in mind, though I've even gravitated towards the riskiest lines of the London system. I mean, you can play any opening like an unthinking chess barbarian.

Yeah, that Bill Gates (who cannot possibly be anywhere near 1700 - I doubt he actually knows all the rules, in fact) thing, among many other such examples, was an embarrassment. It just goes to show that for most people in the world who play chess, it's a waste to pair them against the world champ when they could be beaten just as handily by a Chicken_Monster - or Howard Sterns - for example.

As I understand it, Bill's game is Contract Bridge.

I find sticking with a opening for a long time really helps at lower levels, for Black I find the french easy to play, I have been playing it for around 9 months and I rarely see any moves I haven't seen 100s of times in the first 15 or 20 moves, so it's pretty easy to react to, now once middle game hits it gets more complicated, but at least you have peace of mind knowing your not going to blunder in the early game

Not sure what book you have in mind when you write, "your book". Neither book is mine. I was just trying to mention possibilities. "System", by the way, seems to vary somewhat in meaning from one person to another.

There is a lot of difference between food preparation and chess. In chess, there are a lot of possibilities, and, for many choices, a major consideration is your own comfort. I realize that one is not likely to have much familiarity with anything at the start, but the idea is that one does not simply do what someone says. One needs to experiment and see what one wants to work on.

"... Overall, I would advise most players to stick to a fairly limited range of openings, and not to worry about learning too much by heart. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)

I just don't like garlic. I had a Chinese meal the day before yesterday, from a take-away. It tasted of nothing and two or three hours later my mouth was rancid from the garlic coming back through my pores. A double-whammy ..... it really is the spice of peasants. If I were cooking with a little garlic, I'd use two or three cloves, peel them and crush them with a spoon or maybe chop them fine with a knife.

I was just helping you out there because I noticed you had three posts in a row and there's this rule nowadays where you can't even edit one of them if you do that. A bit draconian maybe, but not as draconian as garlic. This topic is about garlic isn't it?

Coach-Bill (AKA aww-rats) was working on the STAR years ago -- it is a universal defense to any White opening...I'm not sure if it is still in development. This is basically a system for Black (it's related to the KIA he stated). The moves for Black were something like c6, d6, Qc7, Bg4, Nd7, Nf6, e5, Be7 or c6, d6, Qc7, Bg4, Bh5, Nd7, e5, Nf6, … O-O, There must be some other "systems" for Black out there...

https://www.chess.com/club/nm-coach-bills-free-video-lessons

https://aww-rats.webs.com/

@jlconn and others:I read that the London System fairs poorly against the Modern Defense. Is this true? If so, how do you typically handle? Also, can the Semi-Slav be considered a "system" against 1.d4?