For everything except e4

1. I think I saw either a course at chess mentor or maybe it was video about some system that work against everything except e4, think it was named tarrasch but not sure, can someone point me to where I can find that course/video? cant find it just remember the description that said it works for everything except e4 basically.

2. What is the least resource intensive opening combination (I mean to learn).

I am basically tired of getting in to bad positions often early. So I am considering to try to memorize alot, preferably all the way to the end game. This means that for that strategy its probably better with openings with much almost forced play than the sharpest possible lines, what u think?

My thinking

France against e4, tarrasch or somethign modern against basically everythign else

Scotch or maybe something with c4 for white

What u think about that. The reason for france and scotch is that I like them so far but maybe somethign with c4 better for white, what u think?

Sounds like a fantastic plan to me!

I play the King's Indian Defense against 1.d4, 1.c4, 1. f4 1.Nf3 and 1.Nc3. The exact move order changes depending on what your opponent plays but it pretty much looks like this.

After the diagram position, the plan is to usually play Re8, c6, Nf8, Qc7, and then move the light square bishop out. But like the opening itself, you need to respond to what your opponent plays rather than memorizing a bunch of lines.

Most of the general plans of early pawn development will work for almost any non-e4 reply.

An essay promoting the Tarrasch setup is essentially just promoting the two moves d5 and e6, in some order, as the first two moves, followed by c5 on the third against almost any reply.

For the most part, this works fine.  Just beware of any moves that force you to reply in non-standard ways, complete your development sensibly, and move forward from the middle game in confidence against most opponents.

You can also play d5 and e6, together with Nf6, Be7, and 0-0 against most everything.

Same deal with the Slav.  Or the KID.  Or the Dutch.

i think the course you saw was "simple chess: a guide to the semi-tarrasch defence" by FM Galofre on this page

studying the opening until the endgame in every line will probably not help you at all. your opponent will always deviate a long time before you get there. i recommend taking a look at david renschs 10 part course on this site on the isolated queens pawn. who understands the position best will have the advantage when the game deviates from theory which is in 99.9 % of your games. both white and black ends up with a isolated pawn alot from those tarraschlines. if you like the french i think you should try out the tarrasch because they are similar in many ways.

by the way you say you like the scotch which is a good opening but you only face 1...e5 maybe 10% of your games. what is most important as a 1.e4 player is what to play against the sicilian which you face 50% of your games(or at least i do)

Well if u want a system to play for black vs evrything, try the lion, or i saw a book that could be good which was named "The Sniper" which could be interesting ;)

Thanks for the replies, I am not at a stage where I can melt chess advices fast so basically I cant know yet what I will try but some general feedback/answering some posts I can do anyway.

Its a good point this about that its just not for me to decide that now shall we play scotch, I remember now why I was considering c4 as alternative. I have the feeling that there is usually more similar answers to c4 than to e4, agree/disagree?

I mean I know myslef I have best defence against e4 in fact its the only system I have any defence against at all :). French also has this very simple idea to focus on attacking the 2 central pawns from all kind of directions, its a goal thats easy to focus on. I have only played since march 2011 but tried a little najdorf first but the idea about attacking queenside felt to big and hard to focus on and then someone play a4 and the idea is dead anyway, if its not possible to memorize everything then I probably would like system with small focused goals to archive. Like goal 1: attack d4 pawn, goal 2 attack e5 pawn and so on. I have so far only noticed one system that is like that and that is the french. Maybe this kind of systems is what I should use. Confusing :).

I shall check out more about the starting lines and systems thats suggested so far.

I also thought it was "simple chess: a guide to the semi-tarrasch defence" by FM Galofre but I think I checked it out before writing the question and I cant find those exact words "against everything except e4". It was those words that somehow felt like big promise :). Maybe I imagine :).

I found the study I was seeking, it was at chess mentor:

1...d5 works against almost every opening for white.

Thanks for interesting suggestions like kings indian defense, lion, stonewall, dutch etc. I have decided to use defence by try e6 followed by d5 against everything and see whats happening, 2 first move similar is not a bad start if it works. White still totally undecided. I will report back when having some results to present.

I think you mean the "Hedgehog Formation". Far as i know, that system (it not just an opening) can be used against e4, d4 and c4.

Among the players who play this formation are Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik. On the internet say that Petrosian played this system against Fischer in the Final of the Candidates Tournament in 1971, but I don't know.

There is a DVD of ChessBase by the GM Daniel King explaining the theory and the strategies for both sides.

Thanks, I will add hedgefog to the list of check out system and by the way congratualtions to Conzipe for his game on chess tv, the GM seemed really

I played my second tarrasch or more like semi tarrasch (first i lost after 7 moves :)), the second was a 10 u game and I got into trouble more or less directly :), I think it was a total lost situation with 1 min left on clock with the opponent having comfortable 5 min left, somehow I won but no one cant deny that luck do not exist to some extent in chess because I think it will be hard for someone to point to anything I did that was worth a win in that game :).

I haven figured out how to post games that pieces move on yet but its ok because there is nothign worth showing yet :).

Thanks for the suggestion, I have not tried the modern defence either, checked statistics for it and seems strong so thats another one to the list. There was obviously a few multipurpose openings available. To evalute them all will not be easy.

Ok, I said I would report back.

I have tried abit for about 2 months this with making every game as similar as possible to make it possible for future to play the moves without thinking much. I decided to play e6 d5 against basically everything as black and lately I play Queen gambit as white because it often reach the same french position but as white so every game is as similar as possible. The choices seems reasonsable based on the fact that the french defense is considered really solid and the white opening is used on the top level I believe.

The problem is that I have lost 200 rating points since I started to use what for me seems to be not a bad opening repertoair, I have also learnt alot during this two months about most part of the game so should play better so I am confused.

Here is my last game against a 1300 player, reading on the internet 1300 players are not supposed to do much right at all :) so I have to trust that and suppose I have missed alot of simple opportunities for the win?

I felt I got my pieces developed, king safety, no really serious pawn problems though isolated queen pawn, when the game seemed to start to get boring I succeded with a tactic to get one pawn advantage, still the game suddenly was in a bad position and well another loss.

What is demanded to comfortable win games on this level and comparing with for example 1500 level and 1700 level?

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.07.27"]
[White "afccebu"]
[Black "flyr8x"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1328"]
[BlackElo "1335"]
[TimeControl "14|0"]
[Termination "flyr8x won by resignation"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.e3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Bd3 O-O 7.O-O Bg4 8.h3 Bh5 9.Nc3 Nc6 10.a3 Ne7
 11.e4 dxe4 12.Nxe4 Nxe4 13.Bxe4 Rb8 14.Qd3 Bg6 15.Nh4 Bxe4 16.Qxe4 Nc6 17.Nf3 Re8 18.Qd3 Be7 19.Bd2 Bf6 20.Bc3 Ne5
 21.Nxe5 Bxe5 22.Rad1 Bd6 23.Rfe1 Qd7 24.Rxe8+ Rxe8 25.Re1 Re6 26.Rxe6 Qxe6 27.d5 Qd7 28.Qd4 f6 29.Qxa7 b6 30.Qa8+ Kf7
 31.Qh8 Qf5 32.Kf1 Bc5 33.Be1 Qd3+ 34.Kg1 h6 35.Qd8 Qe2 36.Qd7+ Kg6 37.Qg4+ Qxg4 38.hxg4 Kg5 39.Kf1 Kxg4 40.f3+ Kf5
 41.Bd2 Ke5 42.Ke2 Kxd5 43.Bf4 Bd6 44.Bxd6 Kxd6 45.Kd3 g5 46.g4 Ke5 47.Ke3 f5 48.b4 f4+ 49.Kf2 Kd5 50.Ke2 Kc4
 51.Kd2 Kb3 52.Kd3 Kxa3 53.Ke4 c5 54.Kf5 cxb4 55.Kg6 b3 0-1