Hello Lichess,
I think i'm not the only one in this case :
I practice chess with one only chess open : east indian attack because it's simple to learn it and sadly I haven't enough time to learn seriously chess and so learn other classical chess open which demand times.
So, have you some recommandations to discover other chess opens which require some interest but not too much time to master it ?
Thx !
The English. Tends to be always very normal moves. But I think the best way to see for yourself is to watch these two videos:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=5zkUfRUSbbw and
m.youtube.com/watch?v=_SE4lLEo2Rs Remember, the more you play, the more comfortable you get and the better you'll get at playing the opening if you analyse your games afterwards. Also, look up master games. Seirawan and Korchnoi both played it if I'm not mistaken. Try to grasp the ideas.
The two 'problems' are 1. c4 c6 which I prefer to follow up with 2. e4 d5 3. exd5 d4 and it's a caro Kahn position which I prefer for white although it's not sharp or exciting. Play can also become a slab if you play d4 on your second move.
Unfortunately, I'm not the best to help with 1...c5. But more than anything else, make sure you understand the opening PRINCIPLES and when to break them. If you know those, you should be fine.
If you do not have much time, then do not waste it on the study of openings. If you play the east indian attack with white i.e. King's indian attack 1 Nf3 2 g3 3 Bg2 4 o-o, then I presume you play King's Indian defence 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 with black against 1 d4, 1 c4 and 1 Nf3 and you can play Pirc - Ufimtsef with black against 1 e4: 1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6. That is all you need to know and by playing this all over again you will grow your own understanding of it. If you have some time for study, then study endgames. It will be more useful and it will strengthen your overall understanding of the game.
System openings are the easiest to learn, good for beginners, and actually they work in theory also. London system is a great opening as a white, you go for the more or less same setup every time, no matter what the opponent plays. Also Cole system, or Stonewall attack. As black, King's Indian or Grunfeld.
I wouldn't say the King's Indian or Gruenfeld is easy. If you want a system as black against d4, you can still Stonewall and against e4 you could pick something not very theory-heavy like the caro Kann or the French. Or just e5.
Either way, knowing the principles is far more important than the openings themselves and will be helpful if you are forced into an unusual situation.
Once I was playing a tournament, and one of my friends came to me saying something like "Dude, I have to play against this guy, but we have already played a couple of games in the past, and now he should be preparing something to surprise me, do you have any weird variant against e4?", it was late at night, and I wanted to sleep, so I said, "Dude, a scandinavian with Qd8!", I had never played scandinavians with the black pieces to that point, but I had my computer around and the plans turned out to be really easy. Basically, you want to trade your bishop of c8 for the Night on f3, and then play c6, e6, Nf6, Be7, and Nbd7. It took us 15 minutes to prepare. Of course you're waisting a couple of tempi here and there, but you don't have to study a lot. Funny enough, he won and finished 2nd in the tournament, maybe just out of luck, haha. Now I play it from time to time in blitz games. I know this is a defense, but if my friend came to me asking for something to play with the white pieces, I'd probably say a colle system, a catalan, or 1.b4, but that last one is just because I'm crazy :)
I agree with
@tpr. If you don't want to learn much why don't you keep playing the Kings Indian Attack. You're already familiar with it and you can draw from the experiences of your previous games. With White you will always be able to enter(1.Nf3,2.g3,Bg2,d3) it unless you're starting with 1.e4. Plus you can learn a lot because depending on how black responds you will get a variety of pawn structures. Then analyze the games youve played and learn from your mistakes, this should be enough training if you have no time.
Thank you very much for your answers !
I will see all kink of your propositions. At least, your help make me possible to distinguish what could be adaptable to my game or not.
Thank al lot !