How many openings do you actually use?

The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 named openings and variants while Chess.com has over 3,000.

I am interested to learn from other players, how many openings do you actually use?  Do you have four or five go-to openings or do you have an arsenal of openings depending on: whether you are playing white or black, your opponent, or your mood?

Suggestions as white and black welcomed.

2 and i make them work regardless of what my opponent plays.

A narrow repertoire is usually the best approach. I use 4 sometimes 5.

I use 4 or something

My white repertoire is fairly narrow. I always play d4. And for the last bit of time it’s been 1.d4 2.nf3 usually with a fianchetto. Before that it was pretty much exclusively 1.d4 2.c4. I’ve dabbled with 1.nf3 and reti type structures or the English opening. I’m 1.e4 averse.

My black repertoire is larger. Usually a combination of modern defense and variants. But I like transposing into benonis or accelerated dragons. Sometimes I’ll keep it quiet with hippo or a philidor-old Indian via 1...d6. I also have some experience with the French defense and QGD although i don’t play them much anymore.

So basically. 1 for white . And 3-5 for black?

I stick to a narrow repertoire, but it really has to depend on what your opponent plays.

For instance, I always play 1. e4, but my opponent can choose to respond with an Open Game, Sicilian, French, Caro Kann, etc, and I have to be prepared for all the major possibilities.

As black, it's easier: e6 against everything!  Actually, that's not quite true - I have specific lines that don't start with 1. ... e6 that I play against 1. c4 and 1. f4. But e6 really is my first move as black against just about everything else. Against 1. e4, that's obviously the French Defense, and I used to play the Classical Dutch against 1. d4, using e6 before f5 to avoid the anti-Dutch lines. But I've been thinking of switching to the Queen's Gambit Declined instead of the Dutch, just to learn more about classical openings.

Are you the one who told us about using the English, the Taimanov, and the Benko Gambit?

"White: English.  Flexible and not a lot to have to commit to memory.

Black: Taimanov Sicilian.  Again, not a lot of memory commitment.  Benko Gambit.  Easy to understand pawn structures."

I use *tons* of openings commonly. I just like having some variety. 

Here are the openings from my most recent games - and this is just the last few:

Black - Caro-Kann (2. f4)

White - Center Game (2... d6)

White - King's Gambit Accepted

Black - Alekhine's Defense, Normal Variation

White - Caro-Kann (2. Nf3)

Black - Italian, Fried Liver

White - Caro-Kann, Exchange Variation

Black - Alekhine's Defense, transposed into the Bishop's Opening, Berlin Defense

White - Center Game, Danish Gambit Accepted

 

As you can see, I like having some spice in my chess game. (I understand this is probably not optimal, but I find it fun.)

As black I use the Tarrasch Defense against 1 d4, 2...Nf6 Scandinavian against 1 e4

As white I use the Keep It Simple 1 d4 repertoire book,.

Overall it is a fairly decent club level repertoire I think. The three books I use for this total around 1200 pages. 

However, I've been thinking more and more about just using the book Side Stepping Mainline Theory, it plays the Old Indian and Hanham Philidor as both black and white. Perhaps somewhat passive but a better chance to learn the reduced amount well. An entire repertoire in 200 pages is tempting to me. 

 

Curious.  Typically how long does it take to go through 200 pages of an opening book for you?

It will be ongoing because my goal is to learn it as well as I can. 

Some teachers say that when going over a repertoire book to first just go over only the darkest print moves. Read the main explanations also.

Go over the book a second time but include the analysis and read all the explanations.

Go over the book a third time including playing.

Keep playing, and learning the book, over and over and over. At this point just skipping around in the book pertaining only to your games with an increased indepth look. An engine can help answer some questions when you study. 

A good in general middlegame book, tactics book, and endgame book should be included. 

Depends.  I will use almost any opening against beginners to expand their horizons.  Ditto for friendly play with no clock/no ratings.  In casual but timed/rated games against "peers" will usually play e4, c4, or f4 openings.  Against higher rated competition I will drop f4.  I am a fan of various 3 and 4 pawn openings and creating a lot of space for myself.  I am also pretty good at closed games, so some opponents can be surprised that I open with e4, but as soon as they make a couple of passive moves, I will lock up the pawn structure with a space advantage and just squeeze them to death.  If you enjoy playing cramped games, just play any of the various Nf6/g6/Bg7 defenses against me.  You certainly can win, but it might not be a lot of fun .

In Votechess or in correspondence games I will advocate for or often choose an opening I have never played in a serious, researched game before...and that's the best way to learn the ins and outs of new openings, by playing it in a slow time control "open book" format.  

In 2014, GM David Smerdon wrote, "I recently took a train from Amsterdam to the quaint little Belgium town of Bruges. Looking for a book to keep me occupied for the four hour ride, I remembered ... Richard Pert’s Playing the Trompowsky ... And indeed, I was able to read the whole book, cover to cover, during the ride; ... It’s only 260 pages ... I decided to reread the book on the four hour return journey to Amsterdam. ..." That is about 1.08 pages per minute.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/review-playing-the-trompowsky

https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/PlayingtheTrompowsky-excerpt.pdf

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_bruges

Thanks for a great answer, Brink2017!

I'm wondering why did you post this, is it supposed to be impressive? Once you have enough understanding and theory to become GM it's not hard to read a chess book quickly. If he was already familiar with many Trompowsky lines he could plough through it no problem at all.  

Once I spent a whole afternoon and some more time the next day going through many of the lines of Meran and I thought I was all set. Soon I'd be smashing people to pieces in the Meran or at least getting interesting losses. Hundreds or thousands of blitz games later and I have yet to come across a single person in my rating band in blitz that plays into the Blumenfeld/Reynolds Meran.  

My guess would be that GM Smerdon was doing something somewhat similar to the first step of what GM Davies has suggested.

"... The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. ... There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line. ..." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)

My goal has always been to play as limited a repertoire as possible to avoid time-consuming memorization of lines that I will probably never get to play. aimchess gave me a 2021 annual report for my lichess blitz account and said, 'You played 148 different opening variations, but none could match your love for the... Scandinavian Defense. You played 1086 games with  your favorite variation was being Mieses-Kotroc Variation.' This is mostly with the patzer variation or sometimes ...Qd6. I also answer 1... d6 against everything (Pirc, Rat, Old Indian, etc). With white I fianchetto and hope for the best and score well with Catalan or KIA type positions. If 1.d4 Nf6 I will play c4 and play Makogonov against the KID. Fianchetto against Grunfeld. Nf3 English transposition against Benoni. Fianchetto variation against QI and Bogo Indian (never allow Nimzo!). Budapest gambit I play Rubinstein variation, which I highly recommend. Against London System I double fianchetto and score well. Sometimes I do Hippo against everything and I strongly urge beginners to use a universal system in order to meet anything your opponent can throw at you. 

This question can be answered in so many ways, usually, I do bird opening and Sicilian.

But I could go for Vienna as well.

I also keep my repertoire narrow. I play 1.d4 as white, usually accompanied by Nf3 and c4. Lots of Indian Games and Queen's Gambit. For black I typically play Nf6 or d5 in response to 1.d4, and I play just about every variation of the Caro Kann against 1.e4

2, to gain experience with them - which really helps a chess-player.