Written by: Emadeldin Teama

How to build your own chess opening repertoire?

No one can deny that building an opening repertoire is the key to success in chess. A professional chess player has his set of chess weapons at his disposal from the first move. However, so many players spend years unable to see a real progress because they just chose the wrong opening to play that simply doesn’t suit them.

In this article we are going to discuss the proper way to approach the opening and how to have your own lines that guarantee for you to get the maximum benefits out of your chess talent!

Know yourself. What is your chess style?

There are so many chess styles. Some people prefer to play an aggressive outrageous and sometimes unsound attack, others prefer a quiet calm position where small positional advantages can prove to be fatal. We recommend you to first analyze all your games specially the middle game part. Look deeply into each blitz game you played. You need to understand which move your eyes catch first.

In blitz, intuition and pattern recognition play a huge part in the game. If you notice that you play much better when force a weakness on your opponent camp, you like piece maneuvers, strategic wins and transforming your advantages into the endgame. It means you likely prefer strategic opening over aggressive one.

If your games are messy and you are able to conduct an attack successfully out of nowhere . It means you would prefer aggressive openings. However, what does it mean exactly? How can we use this conclusion? Let us see an example.

Important tips to have in mind while creating a repertoire

Assume you want to build a repertoire for black against 1-e4. You have been playing the french defense for more than 6 months and your results are not satisfying you. You checked your games and found out u are enjoying aggressive positions and you can sometimes create an attack out of nowhere and conduct it soundly .Now we know what the problem is. You have been playing an opening that shows your weakness much more than your strength. It doesn’t give you an opportunity to attack and now it is time to switch.

Now let’s say you have two options. First option is to study the Caro Kann which is known to be calm yet solid and has no weaknesses or to study the Sicilian which is known to lead to unbalanced game. From our conclusion it is obvious you would go for the Sicilian if you are an aggressive attacking player. However, which Sicilian to pick?

Learning an opening from scratch can prove to be hard and tedious work.The thing is that there is another important trick to faciliate this process.You should pick an opening which can lead to a familiar pawn structure in the middle game!

Picking an opening like Sicilian Kann variation which has a similar structure to your old French defense repertoire will help you to learn it quickly and would get you the quick results you always want.

How to create a Repertoire that stays with you for life?

The next section is extremely important. First of all you must understand that having an opening repertoire means that you study arising middle game positions and typical endgames as well !

When you choose your opening, you need to choose Sound lines. Sound opening lines are lines that are frequently played by top grandmasters.

These guys play chess for a living and have a team to prepare and check all the possibilities as much as they could. You can just take their hard work free by following their ideas that they play in their games and copying them into yours. A sound opening should guarantee for you equality with best play. Don’t play a bad line thinking your opponent won’t be prepared. It may guarantee for you a lot of quick openings till you get 1900 fide rating perhaps. However, after that you will find yourself stuck with weak openings against very strong prepared opponents and you would end up struggling for a draw in each game afterward!

Another very important point is practicing long time control your new openings versus strong or good opponents. You will understand the strategic principled you studied deeply and will know how to apply them in practice

Last but not least, an opening repertoire must cover all the opponent possibilities. If you want to become an international master and get titles you need to prepare at least one idea for every possible move. Let’s give an example.

Assume you decided to play the Sicilian Kann, you studied the main line and enjoyed it. You start playing it versus friends or online and your results are great then one game after 1-e4 you played 1-c5 preparing for your new favorite opening and then your opponent surprised you with 2-d4 followed by sacrificing a pawn with 3-c3!?

This opening is called Smith-Morra gambit. It is a dangerous anti Sicilian that can be harmless if you know how to play against it. In order to get consistent result you would need to check chess database for all possible white responses against 1-…c5 your Sicilian which include ( 2-c3 , 2-Nc3 . 2-d3, 2-d4, 2-b4?!).

Having various middle game ideas against all white possibilities will not only give you consistent results but also give you the confidence that you need to play your openings versus much stronger players and titled masters.

Blitz and rapid repertoire

This section is made for chess fans who have a full time job and have much less time to study chess. If you only play chess two or three tournaments per year and only blitz or rapid. We are going to give you here tips to guarantee great results. You will be known to be a tough opponent that is hard to play in spite of your small rating!! We will give the tips and then we will recommend a full repertoire for white and black players in blitz and rapid versus every opening!

Here is the quick tips that we keep in mind.

1- Play rare lines that are aggressive and out of fashion.

2- Stick to your lines and don’t change them. Keep on practising the same opening.

3- Understand your typical middle and endgame positions.

4- Play positions where there is a lasting tension for several moves.

5- Play moves that are easy and clear. Play only active moves.

Now we are going to recommend a full repertoire for white and black in blitz!

Part one : White repertoire

For white player we recommend 1-e4.Here are the several options the black has at his disposal

1. For (1-..e5) we recommend the scotch gambit which is **(1-e4-e5 2-Nf3-Nc6 3- d4-cxd4 4- Bc4!?)** this can lead to several gambits . Some of these gambits are absolutely sound and very dangerous. For example the Max Lange attack and the Italian gambit.
2. For (1-..c5) we recommend the grand prix attack which is **(1-e4- c5- 2-Nc3-Nc6 3-f4)** this leads to an aggressive position in the middle game with simple idea. White wants to develop his pieces, castle then try to force f5 and checkmate black. It is easy to learn and very decent.
3. For (1-..e6) we recommend the two knight attack which is **(1-e4 -e6 -2-Nf3-d5 3-Nc3!?)** It is very simple and sound!. Many grandmasters lost against it very quickly
4. For (1-..c6) you can play the two knights as well, however if you like adventures you cant try the Fantasy variation which is **(1-e4 c6 2-d4-d5 3-f3!?)**
5. For (1-..d6 or 1-..g6) which are the Pirc or Modern defense. The classical variation looks like the two knight game. You get similar structure with sound and easy position where you are slightly better always due to your center control.
6. For (1-..d5) the Scandinavian defense you can play a rare good line where you fianchetto your bishop on g2 and play for queenside attack. Most of your opponent will be shocked by this idea.

These recommendations can guarantee for you a quick fide rating of 2000 in rapid or blitz if you prepare them well. You will catch many titled players off guard and they would hate to see your name in pairing with them!

Part two : Black repertoire

For black we recommend easy opening that gets white out of his comfort zone. We would play the same system against 1-e4 ,1-d4 or 1-c4 which is called the sniper.

The sniper starts with 1-g6.. 2-..Bg7 and 3-..c5!? . you get to play the same moves almost against any move from white side.this rare opening started to be popular in the last 20 years after many excellent books were published about it and many crucial grandmaster wins with black.You also may need to learn some of the ideas of the Sicilian accelerated dragon as you can transpose to it!

We hope that you apply these tips in your chess career and we are sure you would get convincing results for your efforts.

Good luck!