Normally you need 3: in order of diminishing importance:
For example Tal, Fischer, and Kasparov mainly played:
I try to keep a narrow opening repertoire. I play the English Opening as white, the Caro-Kann against e4 and lately I've been struggling to find a comfortable response/plan against 1.d4/1.c4/1.Nf3. I used to play the Leningrad Dutch but I've lost confidence in it after some bad beats OTB and draws in correspondence chess where I was unhappy with the positions that I got into.
Depends on what you mean by "know". I can play the first couple moves and understand the basic ideas in alot of different openings. But according to one Russian GM to really know an opening takes playing it at least a year... by that criteria there have been a couple different iterations of repertoires I've played over the years.
I try to keep a narrow opening repertoire. I play the English Opening as white, the Caro-Kann against e4 and lately I've been struggling to find a comfortable response/plan against 1.d4/1.c4/1.Nf3. I used to play the Leningrad Dutch but I've lost confidence in it after some bad beats OTB and draws in correspondence chess where I was unhappy with the positions that I got into.
I used to play and tried love the Leningrad as well but the exposed king diagonal is just too painful the entire game.
Depends on what you mean by "know". I can play the first couple moves and understand the basic ideas in alot of different openings. But according to one Russian GM to really know an opening takes playing it at least a year... by that criteria there have been a couple different iterations of repertoires I've played over the years.
I mean openings you're confident enough to play, i.e. you know the book moves until say the middle game. I enjoy QG for white and French defense for black. I pretty much exclusively use these openings, so should introduce more to my game.
The title and the first post are two different questions.
How many do you know is asking how many you truly UNDERSTAND (Not memorize) such that you know all the ideas and deviation by an opponent causes you no problems.
How many do you rely on is asking how many do you actually play?
I know the Kings Indian. I know the Queen's Gambit Declined. I know the Dutch. I know the French. I know the Berlin. I know the Sokolsky. I know the English. I know the Petroff. That is 8 openings I truly KNOW. I may understand certain variations of other openings, like the Slav, where I know all the ins and outs of the Exchange Variation, but I would only ever play the White side of it.
But I do not play all 8 openings that I KNOW from both sides. For example, I COULD play the QGD as Black, but I choose not to. Only White. I COULD play the Kings Indian as Black, and did for 10 years, but I DON'T at this point.
So the questions are NOT the same.
How many chess openings do you rely on in your repertoire?