The Quest To Play Every Opening Variation
How many opening variations are there in chess?
If you've looked at the Chess.com Explorer, under 'Master Games', you'll notice that the branches quickly become very wide:
For instance, we see here that 3.Bb5 is played more than all other moves combined, but 3.Bc4 and 3.d4 are also seen frequently, with 3.Nc3 in 4th place.
And that doesn't include various sidelines, such as the Ponziani (3.c3) and the 3.d3/3.g3 systems, which may not be as theoretically critical as the main lines, but are still fully playable and can set real practical problems for a surprised opponent.
How Most Players Approach Openings
However, when you look at most players' repertoires, they will have played only one system the whole time - or maybe they used to play another system, but now exclusively play one system for a relatively narrow repertoire. This was especially true in the pre-computer era, when it took far longer to collect material from different sources (magazines, Chess Informants, books and so forth) for that opening.
A notable exception was Vasyl Ivanchuk, who seemed to play almost every opening, at a time when most stuck to a relatively narrow repertoire.
The following image from OpeningTree, showing Ivanchuk's games vs. 1.e4, is a good indication:
As you can see, the OpeningTree looks relatively close to the Master Games database on Chess.com, with Ivanchuk trying no less than 8 first moves in his over-the-board games against 1.e4. This made Ivanchuk a very difficult opponent to prepare for - Anand once recounted that, whenever he was paired against Ivanchuk, he had no way of knowing what Ivanchuk would play, so he just took the day off preparing openings to come to the board with a clear head.
How Ivanchuk Influenced My Approach
Ivanchuk was my own inspiration for broadening my opening repertoire substantially, starting in late 2008/early 2009, as I was getting sick of reaching the same stale positions all the time.
Here are two examples of positions from my Black repertoire that I kept struggling against:
It seemed very difficult to generate real winning chances as Black in this 11.c4 variation (which started to get trendy in 2005, after Morozevich-Leko from the 2005 FIDE World Championship in San Luis). And there was no easy way to avoid it without playing a totally different opening to the Sveshnikov. After a brief experiment with the ...Qd6 Scandinavian in late 2008, I ultimately switched to the French in early 2009, which proved quite effective in outplaying lower-rated players. (Admittedly, the space disadvantage meant that it was also easier for higher-rated players to outplay me, but that's another story).
The second problem system in my 'narrow' repertoire as a junior was vs. 1.d4:
At some point in my life, I simply accepted that the closed positions/memory battles of the Mar del Plata KID simply didn't suit my style as Black, but for many years, the Bayonet gave me massive headaches, as White was getting a very fast attack on the queenside, while I wasn't getting the usual attacking chances against White's king.
The Problem With Having A Narrow Repertoire
When you have a very narrow repertoire, and face such a 'problem' line, you have to put a lot of work into it to try and fix it, and that can be hard if the positions just don't suit you.
When you have some flexibility, however, you have more room to avoid positions you find unpleasant to play.
For instance, in my last years of high school, in late 2009/early 2010, I started to do very well by playing the Averbakh Variation:
In this way, I was able to reach King's Indian type positions/structures, but with a lot less theory.
Even today, this remains one of my best-performing systems in my games, through which I am able to avoid some very annoying systems in the King's Indian (such as the Bayonet and the Makogonov, with h3), while still using my extensive experience in those middlegame positions to outplay my opponents.
The Modern Trend
Nowadays, it's a lot more common for strong Grandmasters to have a very broad repertoire, because you can learn an opening so much more quickly with strong engines to tell you the best moves, and databases of many more GM games to see how the positions typically play out in practice.
In fact, the Chess.com Titled Tuesday events have had a substantial impact here, by greatly increasing the number of available GM games to easily study, even in the more unusual openings. For instance, in an opening course I recently submitted for publishing on Chessable, most of the 'model games' I selected were, in fact, from the Titled Tuesday tournaments, for two main reasons:
1. The blitz games between strong players showed the key ideas and plans far more clearly than classical games;
2. Because I analyzed a sideline, there weren't a ton of high-level GM games to choose from in classical time control.
In any case, it's quite normal for Grandmasters to have several variations in their opening repertoire at any time, both to negate engine preparation, and to steer the play towards positions they like and that the opponent dislikes.
For instance, when looking at DanielNaroditsky's Chess.com games, we can see that he plays 1.Nf3, 1.e4, and 1.d4 at nearly an equal frequency:
Taking Things To Extremes
What if someone wants to play all the openings?
That's actually a quest that one of my Facebook friends, IM Justin Sarkar, has been pursuing for a long time - to play all 500 ECO codes in his published games. (Admittedly, the ECO codes are a bit irrelevant to modern chess, having been created in the 1960s, but it's a very interesting journey all the same).
Sarkar is actually very close to playing all 500 ECO codes, having reached 491 of the total 500 ECO codes in his published games. (A lot of the most recent ones have come from Chess.com Titled Tuesdays, where players are more willing to experiment). A lot of his 'missing' codes are various Benonis with Nf3 or Orthodox Bg5 Queen's Gambit Declined's, which are no longer so trendy nowadays.
My Own Version
I considered a similar project myself in the past, of trying to play all 500 ECO codes in my games, but quickly realized that it would take forever to hit several of the codes that were no longer popular, so I changed my focus to trying to play as wide a range of opening variations as possible on Chess.com.
I'm one of the few Grandmasters to play unrated bullet on Chess.com. There are three reasons for this:
1. To unwind as a break from strenuous work on chess content or playing poker;
2. To get a better understanding of the typical mistakes players of different levels (i.e. future potential buyers of my products) are making in their games, through my own experience;
3. To try out some new opening variations and feel how they play out.
I'm no longer trying to improve my own chess, so I don't care too much about the results - instead, I'm more interested in getting an interesting position and potentially discovering something new in the process.
The Secret To Discovering New/Forgotten Ideas
I've found that one of the simplest ways to discover some fresh ideas in chess is simply to turn off the engine.
When I was working a lot on openings with engines in the past, chess felt like such a limited game - both sides make 20-30 accurate moves, and we get a drawish endgame.
But practical play is very different, where mistakes (or at the very least, inaccuracies) are likely to start happening within 2-3 moves of leaving theory (unless we already have a deep understanding of similar positions).
A More Recent Influence
It's also probably easier for me to come up with new ideas, compared to most other players, due to playing a lot of 4-player chess and crazyhouse chess, which works your brain in somewhat different ways to normal chess. Variants aren't necessarily one of the most effective ways to improve your chess, but I noticed that I perceived chess in a very different way after playing these variants.
4-Player Chess made me a much better prophylactic player and greatly improved my defensive skills (due to having to anticipate attacks from 2 other players), while crazyhouse made me much better at dynamic/attacking play and greatly improved my imagination in general (due to being able to just drop pieces directly, rather than having to maneuver to set up an idea).
Applying Variant Concepts To Normal Openings
In fact, two of my favorite Anti-London concepts were the result of analyzing those systems for crazyhouse chess:
Admittedly, 3.c4! gives White a small advantage, but Black's position remains fully playable, and it's unlikely that White will be fully prepared for this in a game. (For instance, after 3...e6 4.Nc3 Nf6, 5.Nh4! is only the 5th most common move in practice, despite being the only move that guarantees an advantage).
The second system, by the way, is an Anti-Jobava London that Carlsen used to crush Hans Niemann in a casual blitz game in 2022:
The idea is that we will play ...d4 and kick away the c3-knight for an improved Albin. Admittedly, White is still slightly better, but that's pretty good for a Black gambit (most of which are +1 or more for White). This idea was probably inspired by the 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bf4 Bg4 4.f3 e5! gambit that I invented in crazyhouse chess, which helped me to break 2700 and later 2800 in this variant.
Well, it obviously requires reviewing the games you've played previously. Especially in my case, when I've played over 25,000 games on Chess.com alone.
However, it's actually quite easy - I just play through the most common moves, and then look for a playable alternative to what I've done before.
Let's take the Closed Ruy Lopez as an example:
However, I haven't yet played the delayed Worrall with 6.Qe2, which was a favorite of GM Sergey Tiviakov. People often forget about it nowadays, assuming it's just a poor man's version of the modern d3 lines, but Nepomniachtchi used it recently to catch out the young talent, German GM Vincent Keymer, in a rapid game earlier this year:
Furthermore, there are a lot of ways to play the position after the 'Delayed Exchange Ruy Lopez Deferred' (or DERLD) with 6.Bxc6 dxc6. I played the creative 7.Qe1 (avoiding the ...Bg4 pin) in a game, but 7.d3 is the main line, and there's also several playable alternatives, such as 7.Nc3:
As you can see, you don't necessarily have to analyze a variation very deeply to play it successfully. I remember that in the past, Australian IM Alex Wohl would play something just because he saw it in a game, and it looked interesting. Granted, such an approach probably would backfire when used by club players (because they would not know what to do if the opponent deviates from that game), but it shows how you can quite easily add new moves and variations to your repertoire if you have a strong foundation in place already.
Another Way To Find New Weapons
For instance, I had heard of the Portsmouth Gambit before, but I never took it seriously as a practical weapon until I saw that White was scoring 54.2% with it in Mega Database.
For those who are wondering what the Portsmouth Gambit is, it's the following Anti-Sicilian:
If you look at the engine, it will tell you Black is slightly better, but it's very rare that Black finds this continuation in a game. Most of the time, he falls for one of the many traps at White's disposal.
By the way, we can also use this approach to find weapons for Black. For instance, this is Black's best scoring system against the King's Indian Attack, when Black already played 1...d5:
I actually analyzed this system for Black in a subscription of mine a few years ago, before it became well-known.
There's another system that scores even better for Black vs. the King's Indian Attack, in fact:
This system was likely inspired by the Anti-Catalan 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 b5, which I started to play in 2007 with decent results. (At that time, I was avoiding the pure Catalan by playing the Bogo-Indian, with 3.c4 Bb4 - another flexible system with a lot of playable options after 4.Bd2).
Often, the way to find new ways to play a position is to take a familiar idea and change the move order around.
For instance, I haven't played any of 1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 b5!?, 1.Nf3 c5 2.g3 b5!?, 1.Nf3 e6 2.g3 b5 or 1.Nf3 g6 2.g3 b5 yet, but this would allow me to play this system via. a lot of different move orders, and keep things interesting for myself.
Now it's just a matter of finding someone who plays the King's Indian Attack every time as White...
The Legacy
Well, I have noticed that, when we are trying to learn an opening, we face various challenges, including:
1. Not knowing what moves we are most likely to face from our typical opponents:
3. Not understanding how we should play the arising middlegames and endgames.
By playing virtually all the openings in my Chess.com unrated bullet games, I want to leave a model of how a strong player approaches different positions and variations, what you should be aiming for in those positions, and how to punish the typical mistakes that amateur players make.
Because they're bullet games, I also make mistakes - which also provides an opportunity not to repeat those mistakes yourself in your own games.
In my 20 years of experience in this chess world, I've noticed that chess players typically face these three main problems when improving:
1. Lack Of Awareness (not knowing what you're doing wrong, or simply not knowing what you don't know).
2. Learning From Too Many People At Once (leading to confusion and uncertainty rather than mastery and confidence)
The repetition may drive you crazy on the 25th time...but you'll be grateful when you win game after game due to not having to think about it in your games (you just know it). Meanwhile, your opponents are agonizing over the decision for 15 minutes, because they didn't practice it beforehand.
2. Learning From Too Many People At Once - all of the courses in the Illingworth Chess Academy Membership are created by me, so you'll be learning the same things from me, explained more or less the same way. This will help you understand things a lot more clearly and avoid confusion.
You won't be playing too prophylactically because the other coach didn't explain that the best way to deal with the opponent's idea is to successfully ignore it.
You won't be 'never touching the f-pawn', because I'll make a joke about it that will ensure you remember that, in the French, ...f6 is an important middlegame break to destroy White's center.
You won't be choking in winning positions (a common weakness when students first work with me)...because you'll remember the hundreds of times I shared how the Grandmaster 'kept it simple' and stopped the opponent's counterplay before breaking through when possessing a decisive advantage of a strategic nature.
You won't be wondering why you can never seem to defend against your opponent's attacks in your games, because you'll recognize the opponent's space advantage around your king well in advance, and take early measures to create counterplay or exchange pieces before the danger becomes too great.
I could give a lot more examples, but I think you get the idea.
3. Using Your Resources Ineffectively - You have limited time to improve on chess, so if you're serious about becoming a better player, you know you can do better than watching Twitch streams, consuming loads of Youtube 'edutainment', and solving whatever random tactics puzzles are given to you.
Because my training is targeted at your level and on specific themes that come up frequently in your games (be it a specific type of position or a common thinking technique, like candidate moves, the comparison method, or elimination, in the case of calculation), you'll master those themes a lot more quickly than if you try to do it on your own (or with a book).
I give feedback on the puzzle positions in the courses, but whenever you need it, you'll also be able to reach out to me for help. I'll also be adding new courses to continue meeting the needs of aspiring chess players like you.
Furthermore, with 20 courses of mine currently available in the Illingworth Chess Academy Membership - Library (comprising several hundred hours of world-class chess training material), you'll always have 'deliberate practice' at your hands to improve your chess at the pace you would like - that top 20% of actions that will bring 80% of your chess results.
Interested, But Not 100% Sure?
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