How To Build A Repertoire

I would like to hear how other people build a playing repertoire for white or black. I already have my major openings as Ruy Lopez and French Defence.

try everything, and see which one you feel most comfortable with?

Yes very true.That is the best way.Or ask players above 2200+ how to.I became by using the method 12knaves wrote.It is a great method.

Just grow your repertoire as needed. Whenever someone plays a move (or move order) that you can't handle, go find a line that handles whatever they did. Voila, you you just grew your repertoire.

Once you've done that enough, you'll be prepared for just about anything. 

I recommend first selecting an overarching philosophy: classical school versus hypermodern school (etc.), sharp versus drawish, amount of counterplay, etc., and more. From there, the applicable openings will fall into place naturally. For example, if you want to survive at all costs, I'd recommend going for drawish openings, which means Petrov's Defense would be better than the Ruy Lopez, for example. If you value a favorable endgame over an aggressive attack, and if you want decent counterplay along the way, then the French Defense would be better than the Caro-Kann Defense, for example. It all depends on what you want, especially as your top level philosophical goals.

yes

"Each player should choose an opening that attracts him. Some players are looking for a gambit as White, others for Black gambits. Many players that are starting out (or have bad memories) want to avoid mainstream systems, others want dynamic openings, and others want calm positional pathways. It’s all about personal taste and personal need.

For example, if you feel you’re poor at tactics you can choose a quiet positional opening (trying to hide from your weakness and just play chess), or seek more dynamic openings that engender lots of tactics and sacrifices (this might lead to more losses but, over time, will improve your tactical skills and make you stronger)." - IM Jeremy Silman (January 28, 2016)

Also, perhaps look at:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/picking-the-correct-opening-repertoire

http://chess-teacher.com/best-chess-openings/

https://www.chess.com/blog/TigerLilov/build-your-opening-repertoire

https://www.chess.com/blog/CraiggoryC/how-to-build-an-opening-repertoire

Most important thing to know is that it's a long process : even if you buy a ready-made repertoire and start learning it by heart, you'll need to experiment a lot before making it your own. In my experience, becoming comfortable with an opening repertoire usually takes 18-24 months of practice.

As a starting point, you should probably ask yourself a couple of questions :

- what is my motivation in choosing an opening and what kind of opening do I like ? (education, efficiency, pride - "I play like Fischer", offbeat/signature, classical, offensive, solid...)

- how much time am I ready to devote to opening study ? That's a key point because the more complex the openings are, the more time you'll need to feel comfortable with them.

- do I prefer to explore and learn by myself or would I feel more secure adopting something with the seal of approval of a pro player ?

Depending on your answers to those questions, you can start looking for ideas and methods. I invite you to prolong the discussion in our group :

https://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/repertoire-choices?page=1

read books and use programs

which books and programs? what's the best technical approach to doing this? chessable feels like table stakes...but what are more elaborate setups for analysis, saving positions, and studying?

My repertiore depends on the faults of my playstyle: I prefer to avoid exchanges, because my endgame is weak. I prefer asymmetric and often locked pawn structures, because winning with a small, mobility-based advantage is hard for me. I am not too young and in an intellectually demanding job, so memorisation is out of the question. Result: as White I play either 1.Nf3 or 1.c4 (which for example allows me to enter the white side of King's Indian Defence, while avoiding Grunfeld). As Black I vary: 1.e4 e5 or 2...e6 Sicilians, Nimzo-and Bogo-Indians, sometimes less demanding King's Indian lines.

Go chess tempo, literally build infinite repertiores there. Also an underrated platform

Free

Go to lichess select your openings study them with the database.

Paid Go to Chessbase buy the program us it with the online database or the mega db. and prepare your openings.

I recommend the Family Tree Method.

(Subscribing to follow the links later.)

My basic repertoire is what openings I learned as a kid, which were selected haphazardly. I picked d4 as my opening because I was less comfortable with highly tactical and fast e4 openings. I looked at some openings just because I thought the names were cool, who doesn't want to play the Sicilian Dragon? I'm generally pretty comfortable with low-risk gambits like the QGD/QGA, and have looked at my losses to pick up on new lines.

Nowadays, I don't have a lot of study time, so about once a month I randomly look up a few lines in the Explorer and see if I come across anything interesting. And I add things that are adjacent to my current repertoire--the English was easy to add because I'm so used to the Queen's Gambit and the Sicilian, and the positions felt comfortable.

There's a process of basic experimentation that you can't skip over. You need to get an overview of what different openings are available and figure out which you like. To make a really good repertoire it will take many iterations of trial / error.... Don't develop a serious repertoire - like 8-12 moves deep, in the critical lines even deeper - until you know what's out there and what you like / until you're like 1800ish. It takes quite a while to actually create something that deep, and to make it coherent / to ensure it transposes correctly in various places you need to know what's out there. While experimenting just go 4-6 moves deep in the opening... you do need to experiment like this otherwise you'll get to 1800 and have no idea what to do.

- to create a repertoire you should use some tool like lichess studies, chessbase, rybka aquarium, lucas chess, etc. You should create an annotated game with all the branches and variations for a given line. You'll probably end up with 100 or so of these annotated games. You can also create an annotated game that gives a comprehensive overview of your repertoire. You should save this to the cloud or a thumbdrive.

- don't go into the same depth for all lines. In my classical sicilian, for the critical lines in the richter-rauzer I've gone as deep as move 15-17. But that's the only opening in which I've done that. For uncommon openings or sidelines... often move 7-8 is enough. Also... there are sidelines that are played like 1-3% of the time. For the first 2-4 moves you might want to have something prepared against these rare sidelines - i.e. the owens defense, the dutch defense. But after move 3-4+ you should probably have some threshold, where if the move doesn't look interesting, and isn't played more than 5-10% of the time... you don't include it in your move tree. As you get even deeper - like 8+ moves - increase the threshold even more to like 10-20%. This way you avoid the move tree exploding in size. And you're still able to explore deep lines in the critical paths. As you can see, consulting a database of games for your target elo / time control, which will tell you how often various moves are played, is important while developing a repertoire.

By learning the common moves in an opening you will develop an understanding of the position which allows you to deal with sidelines intuitively. Maybe if it's an interesting or tricky sideline you make an exception to this rule.

- crafting a repertoire takes a long time. It's important to start with the core, most common lines, and address the sidelines later.

- it's good if your response to either d4 or e4 is capable of handling the reti and english, at least in large part. In e4 that'd be the sicilian or french. Caro-kann to a lesser degree can contribute, but it'll need to be complimented by something, usually the slav. But e4e5 / other moves after e4 generally aren't useful against the reti or english. Usually the more mainline d4 defenses that follow basic chess principles will work - QGD, slav / semi-slav, KID, QID, tarrasch, some others.

- It's nice if your lines have similar structures in a way that allows you to take max advantage of transpositions throughout. You need to know the different options available and how all the openings fit together to leverage transpositions effectively, too.

- Generally at club level the player who first throws off the opponents preparation and brings them into their own preparation has a significant advantage. So I'd recommend designing your repertoire with this goal in mind.

Some players try to play the most theoretical lines and maximize their objective advantage. This might make sense if you were competing at the 2400 level in classical formats... but even there, generally modern chess has moved away from the theoretical lines and more toward sidelines prepared with engines.

- don't always go with the top engine move. But don't discard the top engine move without a reason, either. Sometimes, before selecting a move, you have to dig deeper into the lines and see how they play out. For example, sometimes you'll see a sideline with a poor engine eval has a big winrate. You'll dig deeper and then see the engine eval changes, or it's based on one obscure move no one ever played. Meanwhile the actual engine line requires very precisely pay on your part / gives the opponent tons of activity / etc.. Things like this you need to consider when you select moves

- Try to choose moves that, at some point when you forget your prep or are out of prep, you will be able to take over and play intuitively. This is especially important when handling sidelines. If it's a common line you may be able to dedicate time to studying a sharp continuation, but if it's a rare sideline... probably not. For example, a fiancetto is often a good way of handling uncommon sidelines, because it will just lead to a positional game where precise continuation isn't as important. And often sidelines allow you to develop a little more, so you have time to do this. For example, in many lines against the reti I am playing b6 or g6, sometimes both, and it's just a game of chess. Same thing against the bird opening. You can assume the reti player will be more versed in the lines than you, this will probably always be true, so you need some logical way of neutralizing that advantage.

On this note, it's often good to respond to gambits by playing less common responses... for example, either giving back the pawn under favorable circumstances, or just not taking it / handling it in some way that goes against what the gambit player wants - they want a very active attacking game. An example of this I like is the blackmar-diemmer which can be transposed into the french rubinstein. Or the smith morra which can be transposed into the alapin. When choosing a line always consider how much experience your opponent will have in it compared with you, and try to neutralize that.

- it's good to consult a database of club player games at your target elo, like what's available on lichess, to see what the winrates are in various lines. Winrates don't tell the entire story about a line, but they do tell a significant chunk of it.

- certain e4 and d4 defenses pair well together. For example, the nimzo indian and QID pairs quite well with the french defense. The english defense and dutch also pair well with it. This is because they have similar structures, and after 1. d4 e6 you can transpose into a french, as well as those other openings. So figure out how to do that. slav + caro-kann is another one. KID + pirc or modern is another. If you were playing the benoni you'd also want to play the sicilian (though the benoni is bad so don't play it). etc..

indeed. I built my Opening Repertoire through my own Chess Philosophy. I don't follow trends. I like what I like and I especially don't like other players' opinions. Such as, "only when one reaches a certain 'level' you can or should study theory", or "the Sicilian is 'only' for a certain level otherwise don't do it" etc. "Don't memorize", "try to understand the moves first". Hah! And this is before chess engines became a thing. Ultimately, you build your own repertoire through experience. That encapsulates wins & losses. If you only play to "win" every game you're being unrealistic. If you're building a repertoire that best represents your mindset, philosophy and goal in each n every game ...cool 😎

A repertoire consists of 3 parts, in descending order of importance:

1. A black defense against 1 e4, e.g. 1 e4 e5
2. A black defense against 1 d4, e.g. 1 d4 d5
3. An opening for white, e.g. 1 e4