ok a little help

When I first started playing chess I started out with d4. Then, I moved to e4 then back to d4. I'm starting to move back to e4 and was wondering what should I play. I haven't played e4 in some months, but I don't like the itailan game its to boring. I like the vienna game and the center counter game. I know white loses a tempo because he brings the queen out early and blacks reply will be Nc6 in a couple of moves kicking the queen out. So my question is what opening should I study I already know the ruy lopez by heart so theres no need to put that one on my to do list. Any thoughts? Also as black I love to the the french against e4, but I'm starting to look into the scillian lines. I'm pretty sure there isn't just one best line for the sicillian, but what is your favorite line or what I should play. I was looking into the accelerated dragon, the najdorf, and the Sveshnikov any thoughts?

Thanks in advance Timeless

Play them all to start with, allow your experiences to shape your repertoire.

Thats the thing prawn I don't have a repertoire yet and I need to get one whats your repertoire?

I play gambit chess as White (King's Gambit, Evan's Gambit, Smith-Morra Gambit, Blackmar-Diemer Gambit) and play tight but aggressive as Black (Sicilian Najdorf against e4, Modern Benoni against d4). I've been playing a long time and have trimmed my repertoire to the bare bones.

The fact that you don't have a repertoire is all the more reason to experiment, breadth of knowledge is important. You'll soon discover what games you are most comfortable with and this will influence your choice of openings. Anyone who says "play x,y,z... it's the best!" talks from their own experience, knowing nothing of your foibles and strengths.

Almost all openings are fine in the right hands and even the unsound ones are very playable below Master level.

Good hunting!

Thats the things I use to play gambits all the time until i stoped and I don't know why. Your right I will expermint with openings. Can the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit be played at master level play?

Given your current take on openings, I would also suggest to try many of them, and then deepen your knowledge of those you enjoy the most playing

Probably not, but it's fun at my level

ok thanks everybody can you guys name me some dangerous gambits for white to play preferly e4 openings but d4 openings work as well and can someone tell me the move order for the halloween gambit. I've always wanted to learn that opening.

king's-gambit,scotch-game-goring-gambit,italian-game-evans-gambit,smith-morra-gambit-against-sicilian,center-game-danish-gambit.

Halloween Gambit

Thanks everybody

I'd say don't try too many, only professional players can enjoy playing almost everything.

Almost all openings are good, the problem is that when we lose we tend to blaim the opening. Since you have gone back and forth you are likely to have seen a couple of openings in d4 & e4 by now, choose either 1.e4 or 1.d4. If you just can't make up your mind, copy the repertoire of your favorite player or just flip a coin! it doesn't really matter, imho what matters is to fix a repertoire and start deepening your familiarity with the positions which arise from it. When you finish a game, analyze it and get deeper into the positions, find more moves for your opponent, more moves for you.

That being said, I would choose mainlinish openings (e.g. not the cochrane gambit vs the petroff) because they have potential to serve you for a long time.

As Black again I'd say have just one defence vs e4 and one vs d4 but try to master them.

When you fix a repertoire, write it down, it helps! you don't have to write down the whole repertoire at once, but if e.g. you plan to play the french advance as white, write down 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5, once you play some games in this line as White, start writting down more sublines and comment on the lines which were used by your opponents.

Regarding the sicilians you mentioned:

acc dragon/Sves : no idea, really :)

Najdorf: I played it a long time ago, very interesting, very dynamic, teaches allot about chess BUT it is also very demanding, both OTB and while you are studying it.

Btw, why do you want to play something else than the French if you like it?

Thanks pentagram your comments really helped me understand  finding my repertoire better. Why I started to look into different lines to play against e4 is people aren't play e4 d4 anymore against me for some reason. The game would start out like  e4 e6 then they would play Nf3 on move 2. I wouldn't know what to do after that. I tried to advance d5 anyways, but I dont like the postion i get from it. Or if they play d4 on move to meaning e4 e6 d4 and I followed up by playing d5 they would play the exchange vartaion of the french, which I hate to play against. I will show you a example of what I'm talking about. Also, pentagram what do you play against when you face c4 the english opening?

I am no expert in the French (and more general in openings) but I have a copy of John Watson's "Play the French 3rd edition" somewhere in my flat and iirc he recommends a line with opposite castling and potentially with a materially imbalanced endgame (Black's 3 pawns vs White's piece). According to Watson these imbalances suffice to ensure a non-drawish game, even though the pawn structure is symmetric.

When I get back home I could post 1-2 lines to give a flavor of what Watson says but I don't have the courage to re-type the whole exchange chapter!

Regarding the English I haven't fixed a line yet, I am in the slow process of building my repertoire as well but I had build a different one in the distant past, which is why I am confident that fixing a narrow repertoire based on reasonable openings & analyzing games your games is one of the best ways to have stability in the opening & good results for non-professional players. Not to sound like advertising but I plan to order Palliser's "Unusual Chess Openings" which covers the symmetric English. Genereally Palliser has a good reputation and I trust him to provide playable lines. In his book he focuses on the symmetric English, which however may not be to your taste. In ... the previous century I had studied GM Kotronias  excellent book "beating the flank openings" which advocated more aggresive lines but it is possible that many of these lines are now outdated.

Kotronias' lines still hold ! He is an excellent analyst !

ok thanks do you what website I can buy the book off of the unusual chess openings and what do you mean by analzing games (meaning my games or other peoples games)? What do I look for or study when I analzye games? I brought some books some time ago on bobby fischers greatest games and I think paul morphy. They aren't to hard to understand but I never gasp the concept of analzying a game along with the postion. Could you help me out if you don't mind

Play the Dunst

 First analyze your games it will not only help your openings but your analytic skills as well.

 Regarding games from other players, I find it very hard to analyze games by Super GMs because there are so many subtleties there that a non SGM won't grasp. What I do (that is what I did, I haven't gone that deep in my new repertoire) is read annotated games by Super GMs from Informant (some call it informator). By read I don't mean just go through the whole game in 3 min & skip all annotations but go through the game slowly, at each move think what I would have played, compare it to the move made by the grandmaster, his analysis, go through the endgame & understand who is better, what pieces should be kept in this endgame. It takes more time but I found this to be of help, after some time you will play your favorite openings better.

 Of course going through SGM games won't make you an SGM but I found it helpful, however it is not an easy task with the laconic commentary the chess informant provides. I don't know what the quality of informant is these days (used to be the standard reference for modern games), also maybe there are more publications which are worth considering and preferably more verbal ones. Some feedback by other members here would be useful as the last informant I read was vol 63 and my knowledge of available publications & their quality is vastly outdated.

 Another idea is what you said, to get game collections and go through them, these books usually have plenty of commentary and if the annotator did a good job, then they help allot. Also don't find it strange that you cannot predict Fischers moves, his opponents couldn't and they were SGMs! if a game seemed tough, go through it again, check every move which you didn't understand, you may have to go through a game several times to become convinced that you learned its concepts.

 Regarding analyzing your games I am not sure if it is a good method but here is what I do:

 1) Wait you until have 20 games in "stock".

 2) spend a couple of hours on each game and try to find improvements both for your & your opponents play. No-one plays perfect chess, especially at our level and so you are bound to find plenty of improvements  both in the middlegame and in the endgame.

3) then go through the opening, see what other moves have been played, what other plans you/your opponent could follow. For this task use opening books, annotated games & databases.

4) After doing the above alone or preferably with your trainer but without a computer, load your games into the computer and check your analysis with the computer analysis. If the computer doesn't even suggest a line you found in your analysis, force it by hand to check it to see what happens there.

5) Write your analysis down!

Of course doing all these things is time consuming, what I do atm is analyze my own games & read annotated games (GK's predecessors atm). Only when I begin playing my new repertoire decently will I start worrying about modern trends & most recent SGM games.

Regarding places where you can find books, there are plenty of them, I use amazon.co.uk (this is for Britain), for the US www.amazon.com is what you could use but again, look first at local bookstores you may find used older books at very good prices. Generally, don't buy too many books as you probably won't find enough time to read all of them!

Nice! I'm really tempted to go through it again and re-adopt one of the aggresive lines Kotronias advocates. He is a fantastic player & analyst, when I opened 1.e4 I had also used his book "Beating the Caro Kann", also excellent material there as well. Even GK in his predecessors makes a note if Kotronias advocates a line and Karpov in his C-K book is always careful to mention when he practices a "White" line.

Thanks pentagram I will get started with all this as soon as I get home