Build your perfect Opening Repertoire

Written by Improveyourchess.com Editor GM Tony Kosten

The key to Chess success and enjoyment!

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Copyright improveyourchess.com 2005

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Introduction - Why you need a good repertoire The beauty of having a solid repertoire, and why it is important for you Why do you need a good opening repertoire? Firstly, a repertoire in tune with your style of play will bring you better results and more fulfilment. We are not all universal players, equally good at all parts of the game, we all have our pluses and minuses. Some of us are stronger in open tactical positions, others prefer a fixed and closed pawn structure where they can slowly manoeuvre their pieces behind their lines and gradually create an opening. Some of us prefer simple positions with fewer pieces (and even endgames), some of us enjoy the tension of a lot of pawns and pieces in close contact. Whichever player you are you will make better results (and enjoy your chess more!) if you are playing positions you feel at home in. The Horses for courses! Chapter will deal with this subject in more detail. Second, without a guide as to which moves are tried and trusted in the opening it is almost impossible to play this phase of the game well. If you don't believe me then try turning the 'book' off when you next play against your computer, you will be amazed at just how stupid some of his opening moves will be! And this from a 'player' with a theoretical rating in excess of 2600! Third, you can again considerably improve your results (and, as a direct consequence, your enjoyment from the game) if you can play the opening quickly, instead of thinking too much in the early stages, you will just be reciting from memory. All this time you save in the opening can be used to good effect later! Finally, not only will you get positions you enjoy and feel comfortable with, but most importantly, you will be playing positions you understand. If you understand the position you will know why your opponent's play is good or bad, and if the latter you should know why, and how to punish it – many openings feature typical tactical themes that can be exploited over and over again!

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Your plan of action A quick to-do list Picking the right openings shouldn't be a simple matter of 'trial and error'! You could spend years chopping and changing without getting the right recipe! Here is our plan of action:

1. You must define your playing style 2. Decide how much time you have to spend on study 3. Decide the type of openings you will feel happiest with 4. Pick your new opening repertoire 5. Understand the strategic ideas behind each opening 6. Play through entire games to familiarise yourself with the opening,

and the typical middlegame plans 7. Try to memorise the variations, whilst understanding the why and

wherefore 8. Informal practice games to fix the theory in you memory 9. Watch out World, here I come!

We will look at each of these subjects in more detail in the rest of this eBook.

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Horses for courses! Know thyself ... attacking, strategic, cautious etc... what are the strengths and the challenges? It is very important to pick an opening repertoire that matches your style of play. A player who does not feel at home in sharp tactical positions would be most unwise to play wild King's Gambits as White! Probably most players will tend to gravitate to the sort of openings that suit them anyway, because they automatically feel more comfortable playing these positions, but it will certainly pay dividends to reassess this from time-to-time, and do any requisite fine-tuning. For instance, the Bogo-Indian doesn't have a very good theoretical reputation, and yet I played it with success as a young (ish!) player in the USSR with great success (wins against future and past World Champions!) and I still play it- the positions just seem to correspond to my style.

XIIIIIIIIY 9r+-+-trk+0 9zpl+nwqpzpp0 9-zp-zppsn-+0 9+-zp-+-+-0 9-zPPzP-+-+0 9zP-vLLzPN+-0 9-+-+-zPPzP0 9tR-+Q+RmK-0 xiiiiiiiiy

The diagram position (from my game against Smyslov, Hastings 1988) is typical of the solid, compact type of position that arises for Black. Strategically it is quite simple to play: White has the bishop pair and will want to open the position, Black will keep it reasonably closed and look for squares for his knights. Later in this same game the following position was reached:

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XIIIIIIIIY 9-+-tr-+k+0 9zpltr-+pzp-0 9-zp-zpnsnq+0 9+-+-zp-+p0 9-zPP+P+-zP0 9zP-+Q+PzP-0 9-vL-+-+L+0 9+-tR-tRN+K0 xiiiiiiiiy

As Black only has one (light-squared) bishop left he can easily put his remaining pawns on dark squares (as here), which also serves to inhibit the white dark-squared bishop. I based my play around this simple strategic idea. Of course, as in many similar Hedgehog-style structures the black position contains a powerful dynamic potential, and I now broke out by 27...b5! 28 cxb5 Rxc1 29 Rxc1 d5 30 Qe3 dxe4 31 fxe4 Bxe4 32 Bxe4 Nxe4 33 Re1 f5 34 Bxe5 Rd3! 35 Qxa7 35 Qxd3? Nf2+ 35...Qg4 36 Qg1 Rd5 37 Ba1 Nf4! 38 Qh2 Qf3+ 39 Kg1 Nh3+ 40 Qxh3 Qf2+ 41 Kh1 Qxe1 0–1 Summing up, I had found an opening that suited my style (I did get smashed up by Kramnik in this opening once though!) Do you prefer piece play, closed positions, strategical open complicated, simple, endgames ...? If you are not completely sure about your style of play, then the first step is to collect your most recent games together: where did you score well, where badly? Where did you feel comfortable, where not? It is often an interesting exercise to look over games you played anyway (particularly ones you have lost!) to try and workout where you went wrong, but this can most certainly be applied to determining your style, and evaluating whether you are playing the appropriate openings. Even better, you can ask a master to look at some of your games for you (but don't just pick the best ones!) as he will determine your strengths in the

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wink of an eye. improveyourchess.com have a suitable scheme going where, for a small sum, a titled player will examine your games. Failing this, consider asking your chess friends' opinions. Often they will have a clearer idea of your most obvious strengths and weaknesses than you do! Having always thought of myself as a bit of a hacker, I was most surprised when a fellow chess player told me that he thought that I was a positional player. I suppose that old age is setting in!

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Other factors Do you have an appropriate repertoire for your situation? Another important criteria to bear in mind here is the amount of time you have to study chess. Obviously if this time is severely limited then it would make sense to learn a few simple, not overly theoretical openings. Alternatively, if you have all the latest opening books, or even better, a computer with regular updates of all the latest games, are subscribed to ChessPublishing.com and if you enjoy memorizing long sharp variations, then go ahead, play the Sicilian Najdorf and try to keep abreast of all the latest developments. Good luck! You will need it! Do you enjoy taking risks? Are you happy to play positions with less material and a strong initiative? If so you can consider playing the King's Gambit, the Benko, or even the Blackmar-Diemer, etc. Do you feel your heart racing when your king is still in the centre, or subject to some attack? If so, pick an opening where you tuck the king away on the wing quickly and keep as many pawns around it as possible. Do you find you score well when you grab material and hang onto it? I know several players who are like this (and almost every computer program!), Korchnoi is a famous example. You might have other personal reasons to adjust your repertoire. Myself, I noticed that I was dropping lots of money by losing important last round games where I had white, and only needed to draw to win the tournament. The problem was that I always played sharp stuff with 1 e4, and this is just what my opponent's would want: there would be a sharp Sicilian, or French, say, and a draw would be the least likely result! I realised I had an 'all or nothing' repertoire, one that could make lots of points, but where there was no safety margin. I needed a more rounded opening repertoire, where my opponents would have to take the risks if they wanted to win with Black. So, I started playing some solid Flank Openings, notably the English Opening. I realised that I felt happier with my king safely castled and my pieces sensibly developed before starting tactical operations. I also discovered certain systems (like Botvinnik structures with pawns on c4 and e4) where, although I don't think White has many winning chances against correct play, it seems almost impossible to actually lose with White!

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Here is an example: I was to play a key French cup match for Monaco against Cannes (two of the top French teams). I offered to play on board one to 'take out' (make a draw against) their strongest player (Vlad Tkachiev) with the white pieces as I had so much confidence with my solid repertoire, I felt I couldn't lose! My opponent (feeling obliged to play for a win) started taking risks against my dull Botvinnik System, but as Black this is a dangerous business, I pounced on one of his errors and actually won. I have used this system with success many times since whenever I needed to draw to win a tournament. I still play other openings occasionally when the situation demands it, though, when I need to play sharply, or when I see a weakness in my opponent's repertoire.

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Main lines or sidelines? Main lines improve chess but require a lot of work, unusual lines offer less advantage but need less maintenance, and may surprise your opponent I don't have a lot of time to study chess myself (too busy writing for improveyourchess.com!!), and so I personally prefer playing lesser known variations as there is normally a lot less work required to obtain a working knowledge of the opening, and each of my opponents is faced with new and possibly unpleasant problems. The amount of time gained in the opening is often appreciable even if the adversary does manage to find a good line of play. When I was writing my book on the Philidor, and before it was published, I played it almost invariably against 1 e4 with great success. Before chess databases came along my opponent's didn't know I played it and simply weren't prepared for it. Even 2600 players found themselves in trouble with the white pieces: I had a score of over 80/90% with Black against 1 e4! The disadvantage of this approach is that you are often forced to think yourself from an earlier part of the game, as if your opponent doesn't know what he is doing he will quickly leave theory. However, if you play an unusual system and know the thematic plans and ideas you should be able to keep your feet more easily in such situations. Referring again to the Philidor, I often used to play Hanham's variation, and after the normal 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 Nf6 4 Nc3 Nbd7 5 Bc4 Be7 6 0–0 0–0 7 Re1 c6 8 a4 reached this position: XIIIIIIIIY 9r+lwq-trk+0 9zpp+nvlpzpp0 9-+pzp-sn-+0 9+-+-zp-+-0 9P+LzPP+-+0 9+-sN-+N+-0 9-zPP+-zPPzP0 9tR-vLQtR-mK-0 xiiiiiiiiy

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I would now play for queenside expansion by ...b6, ...a6, ...Bb7 and then ...b5 - a simple and effective plan, which once learnt can be recited many times. For instance, in my game against San Marco, Hyeres op, 1992, we continued 8...b6 9 Bf1 a6 10 h3 Bb7 11 g3 Black has done nothing special, and is already equal, the game went on: 11...Qc7 12 Bg2 Rfe8 13 Nh4 g6 14 Bh6 Bf8 15 Bxf8 Nxf8 16 Qd2 Ne6 17 Nf3 Kg7 18 Na2 Rad8 (just simple development!) 19 Qc3? d5! 20 exd5 Nxd5 21 Qd2 Nf6 22 c3 exd4 23 Nxd4 Nxd4 24 cxd4 Rxe1+ 25 Rxe1 c5 winning a key pawn and the game, a few moves later. My opponent was clearly exasperated at losing so easily with White, especially as I played an 'inferior' opening and had barely thought about any of moves, and berated me after the game, saying something like: "putting all your pawns on the sixth rank, this is not chess!" Another potential problem (but one with which I am often faced) is that, with a few accurate moves, your opponent can often equalise at an early stage of the game when he has Black, or gain an advantage if he is White. Returning to the Philidor example, yet again, when my book was published my opponent's read it and discovered the best way of playing with White! I then had a number of uncomfortable experiences with Black and was forced to change openings! The advantage of playing mainlines is that you (and, alas, your opponent too -especially in this day and age where your opponents have access to large databases, can see what you play, and can then see how strong players handle this) can often trot out twenty plus moves of theory without thinking and gain precious time on the clock. This is not to be sneezed at in these modern times where the time limits are getting faster, and faster! On top of that, if you have White and play top theory you are liable to be able to maintain your advantage well into the game. The disadvantage is that you will need to spend a large amount of spare time on your opening repertoire, you will have to make sure to keep abreast of the very latest theory - your work will prove to be wasted if you aren't aware of Topalov's big innovation last week ... and your opponent is! Finally, you will also need to have a pretty good memory!

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Which opening? It is all down to the pawn structure! Next comes the tricky part! How do you actually pick the right opening? Openings are often classified into three basic categories: Open Games (1 e4 e5), Semi-Open Games (1 e4 ... – The Sicilian Defence, the French Defence, etc) and Closed Games (1 d4, 1 c4) but I have never really trusted these categories as, say, the mainline of the Closed Spanish is hardly 'Open' and many Queen's Gambit Accepted lines are certainly not closed! Still, this does give us an idea, I always advise young students to start playing 1 e4 as white to practice their tactical skills, and then only move on to 1 d4 when they are already quite strong and need to polish their positional ability. Furthermore, we can refine this somewhat further if we realise that the 'Open' or 'Closed' nature of the position is derived from the nature of the pawn structure. Thus, I would advise tactical players to avoid any position where the central pawn formation is fixed (like many King's Indian lines where White answers Black's ...e5 move by playing d5) as far as possible, pick openings where the central pawn constellation is fluid (like the Open Sicilian) or where one or both of the central pawns have been exchanged (and one of the central files is open). If you like simple strategical plans then opt, on the other hand, for relatively fixed structures – those closed King's Indian structures where White plays for c5 and queenside attack and Black for ...f5 and kingside attack, for instance. If you like fluid positions with lots of pent-up central tension then you will want to play an opening where the central pawns stand facing each other, like the Catalan. I am sure you will quickly get the idea, but here are some potential ideas: A possible repertoire basis for White: Aggressive tactical player: 1 e4, open games & Scotch vs e5, Morra Gambit versus Sicilian, 3 Nc3 vs French, 3 e5 vs Caro. Aggressive positional player, 1 e4 Spanish main line vs 1...e5, Open Sicilian, 3 Nc3 vs French, 3 Nc3 vs Caro.

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Positional player: 1 d4, Catalan, Classical vs King's Indian, Mainlines. Careful positional player: 1 Nf3, Reti-type structures (bishops on g2 and b2), slow pressure on black centre. A possible repertoire basis for Black Aggressive tactical player: Benko Gambit or Benoni vs 1 d4 1 ...e5 vs 1 e4, Marshall Gambit vs Spanish Aggressive positional player: Grünfeld Defence or King's Indian vs 1 d4, Sicilian vs 1 e4. Positional player: Queen's Gambit Declined vs 1 d4, Caro-Kann vs 1 e4 However, there are many other possibilities, play through some top-notch games to get an idea of the sort of positions that arise from a variety of openings.

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How to familiarise yourself with your chosen opening Play through thematic games Whilst it is important to memorize certain variations, this alone will not be sufficient. For, unless you have a photographic memory (like GM Jim Plaskett for instance) you will quickly find that you have forgotten many of the lines, and while playing the opening a lot will certainly help here (that said, players who have played the same openings all their lives still forget important variations from time-to-time!) you need another aid. For it is just as important (if not more so) to try to understand what happens after the opening – what is the point of the opening moves (apart from simply developing), and what plans are successful in given situations. Thus, it is always a good idea to look at entire games played by strong players in your chosen variations to see how they handle the positions, and try to obtain a feel for the typical ploys employed. Knowing the best plan in any given position certainly saves a lot of frustration, and will bring home a lot of extra points. Therefore, I suggest that before you devote much time to actually remembering the theory, have a look at a good selection of important games by top players in your target opening (if they are annotated by the player himself, so much the better!) Don't get too lost in the nitty-gritty of the theory just yet, just try and get a feel for the basic opening and middlegame ideas, and stratagems. If you really understand the opening ideas well you can almost certainly work out the correct move in the opening even if you can't remember the theory! The late GM Tony Miles, for example, felt that he could play the Dragon without knowing all the latest theory – his understanding and feeling for the opening helped him find his feet almost every time! If the opening has very typical endgames (like certain Grünfeld lines, say, where Black can make use of his queenside pawn majority) then examine some of these too. Once you have a good feel for the opening look at the theory and try to memorise the variations, we will get some help with this aspect later in the eBook!

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The value of book study How to pick the right books Nowadays the Internet is a great provider, and improveyourchess.com will soon introduce our repertoire building service to help (for all, members and visitors alike, but members getting a sizeable discount) - each month we intend to bring out a new repertoire action book, very much in the B-Formula format. However, a lot of us prefer to read paper books, and they do offer a number of advantages (you can take them to the park to read on a hot Summer's day, for instance!). There is also an enormous choice in chess literature particularly as regards openings – you can find a huge selection of books on almost each and every sub-variation these days! Which ones to choose? I would recommend avoiding the 'complete' opening books at first (any decent coverage of one particular opening is likely to be too dense and enormous these days anyway) and buy one or two repertoire books. These are often written to a winning formula: a strategic introduction, typical plans, and then the theory in easy chunks, using whole games to illustrate the later middlegame plans. These books have one obvious advantage: the Grandmaster has already sifted through the opening and picked out some good lines for you, saving you the trouble, and then explains everything to you as well – it is the easiest way to learn and I even prefer to buy books like this myself! Some of my favourites: The Dynamic English and Easy Guide to the Najdorf by my preferred author ... Tony Kosten! Seriously, though, there are many other excellent ones on the bookstalls, Play the French 3, by John Watson, Winning with the Catalan by Angus Dunnington, etc. Just make sure you choose a book by a reputable author (beware, there is also a lot of quickly-written trash in this sector of the market), and find out whether it has had good reviews. You can even ask people's opinions on one of the numerous Chess Forums. Along the same lines there are books that offer a complete repertoire for White or Black, books such as Attacking with 1 e4 by John Emms. This just about tells you everything you need to know in the title: it is a white repertoire for the attacking player using e4 on his first move. This even has

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the advantage of saving you the problem of deciding which opening you want to play, you just have to decide that you want to attack! Again, the GM has done all the hard work and all you have to do is buy the book and read it! One problem with such books is that you might not like all the suggested lines (in fact there is little chance you will actually like them all!), but this is not a problem, you can simply 'cherry pick' the lines you like and replace the ones you are not so keen on with something of your own. Once more, make sure they are by a well respected author!

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Modern technology Use ChessBase to develop your repertoire As I wrote just above, I like to use books, but I also use other sources (like TWIC, New in Chess Year books, ChessPublishing.com – the opening theory site, or Chess Today, say) to get ideas, but will quickly forget them! Many years ago I would scribble all these down on bits of paper which I would take with to me to tournaments. I would then dig out the appropriate scraps of paper when preparing for a particular opponent – I remember using such a note to spring a novelty on a young Boris Gelfand and win a nice game many years ago in the Soviet Union. Nowadays technology has moved on, and we have the use of sophisticated chess databases with analytical machines that we can carry with us. So, these days, whenever I see something that interests me I 'write' it down in new games (or add them to old ones) using ChessBase. This program has various advanced functions which will help you here: first you can designate a database to be your 'repertoire database', then you have other options to add particular games and even get the program to search through complete databases for relevant material. You can also use Fritz or his 'brothers' to analyse these games and openings checking for flaws, or improvements. Good databases like ChessBase and Chess Assistant are fairly expensive, though, and thus only for the serious (or rich!) player, but there are plenty of cheap (or free) alternatives that will be nearly as good (you can get ChessBase light for free, say, and most playing programs come with basic database facilities and games).

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How to use a chess playing programme to improve your openings Practice, practice, practice ... Once you have prepared a new opening how best to test it before springing it on an unsuspecting World? I think the best way to get the hang of an opening is to play some games with Fritz, or whatever analysis engine you have at home. If it plays something you don't remember, then don't hesitate in stopping the clocks and trying to work out what you should be playing. If you still can't remember then go to your book, or ChessBase, and have a look – it is not cheating! You can even play the opening with your opening book or notes beside you to make sure you get the positions you want to test. Better still, put the position you want to test on the board manually and start the game there. This way you will get a good opportunity to improve your ability to remember the variations, plus a chance to test your middlegame plans. Make a mental note of where things went wrong, if it was just a simple tactical blunder when you had a good position don't worry too much about this, but if you fall for the same trick several times ... make sure it doesn't happen again! It may be that you lose a lot of games because the machine is simply stronger than you, if this bothers you then give yourself much more time, say 20 minutes, and give the computer one minute – this way you have a better chance of getting a positive result, and you don't have to wait so long for the computer to move! Don't worry - the computer doesn't have feelings so he won't mind too much! Remember you are not trying to win the games, just get practice in your chosen opening. Of course, if nothing went wrong, and you feel you are really getting the hang of the opening, then it is time to move on to the next stage.

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Practice with the real thing Using non-important (internet blitz) games Ok, you've built your repertoire, you've practised against your computer, you feel pretty certain you know what you are doing, what next? Now you can try against real flesh-and-blood opponents – they will pose a different set of problems. The difference here is that they won't benefit from a 'Fritz power book', they will have to try to remember the theory and will have to think for themselves, they will likely react in a completely different manner. Where to go to meet these opponents? Well, you could go to your local club or chess café as you normally do, but there is a good alternative: the Internet. Two good reasons: firstly, you may not want to reveal your new openings against your usual playing partners, but prefer to surprise them when you are good and ready. Secondly, if playing blitz games, you can experience an awful lot more games in less time. Log onto one of the many chess-playing servers and find some opponents. Of course, in the comfort of your own home you can still look at your books if you forget the theory, but it might be better to attempt to duplicate serious tournament conditions (this will also save you considerable time on the clock!) Keep a record of your games and make sure you go through them afterwards (maybe with an analysis machine like Fritz if you have one). Check whether you remembered the theory properly. Check whether you played the right middlegame plan. How did you feel during the game? Where did you make your blunders? Were they tactical or positional? Do some more memory work, or make the necessary alterations to your repertoire.

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Is it really the right opening for you? Don't give up too easy on the opening if you get some initial setbacks! What if things don't go according to plan, and despite all your efforts you lose your first real tests? In fact, this actually happened to me many years ago: I bought a book on the Sveshnikov Sicilian, studiously memorised all the lines and then played it against a good master-strength player in a club match. Unbeknownst to me my opponent also played this as Black, and trotted out a long mainline, I had to fight all game long to scrape a draw against a lower-rated opponent! I never played the line again!! Of course this is an extreme decision, but basically I realised that the opening wasn't for me. Of course, I should have learnt this before I spent so much time memorising the lines! Seriously, you might suffer a number of setbacks, which may demoralise you. Don't get disheartened like me! A very important chess rule is to analyse your games after you play them to see where you went wrong (or right), you can learn an awful lot about your play like this, and correct many faults. I try to do this after each game with the help of my computer and analysis engine – it can be very surprising! I have played very tactical games, won, been feeling very happy with myself, gone back to my hotel room, opened my portable computer, entered the moves, started HiArcs (or Fritz), only to discover that nearly every move of mine was a pathetic mistake!! So, every time you get to play your opening, win or lose, I suggest you look through it afterwards with a good machine, and your opening book. You will find faults with some aspect of your play, these will need to be repaired before your sally forth again! Of course if you have a good position and make a silly tactical blunder you can hardly blame the opening! After playing say 5-10 games, and if your results aren't very encouraging despite playing the opening correctly, it might be time to reconsider: Ask yourself these questions:

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Firstly, how do you feel when you play this opening? Comfortable? Do you have enough space? Is it too open/closed? Does the tactical nature of the position make you nervous? Do you feel your king is too exposed? etc., ... Next, send your games to one of our coaches and see what he thinks. Finally, if you are having real doubts go through the whole procedure of picking your opening again, right from the beginning!

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Conclusion Choosing the right openings is a serious business! Choosing an opening repertoire is an important (even primordial) part of your chess preparation, and should not be left to chance. There is no point chopping and changing all the time hoping to find the best opening for you by chance. Neither is it a good idea to play something just because your mate at the chess club does! Also, just because Kasparov played the Poisoned Pawn Najdorf and won convincingly with Black doesn't mean it is the right opening for you: Kasparov had the resources (plenty of time for chess, and seconds who were continually working on his openings) to keep ahead of the complex theory, and is a fantastic tactician capable of coping with any of the openings complications that invariably arise, you, on the other hand, probably have none of these advantages! Worst of all, just because you see a book on the tournament bookstall with a fancy cover or enticing name doesn't mean that this opening is right for you! Follow the guidelines here each time you want to change anything in your repertoire, be systematic, be objective, and BE SERIOUS! Your future results and chess enjoyment depend on it!

Yours in Chess, Grandmaster Tony Kosten