1.d4 2.Nf3 very wide anti-preparation White repertoire

I am not asking whether my repertoire would be a good idea for most people. I am asking whether my repertoire would be a good idea FOR ME personally. Each person is different. Each person has his own tastes, his own preferences, his own goals. My particularity is that I want "to be impredictable and to avoid opening preparation", I personally place much much more importance on this point than the average person does. Sure, having to learn so many openings would be difficult and so it is a disadvantage. This disadvantage would make my repertoire a bad idea for most people. But for me personally, the advantage of being impredictable and avoiding opening preparation might outweigh this disadvantage.

How can anyone on this forum give you advice on whether your repertoire would be good for you for personal reasons? I am not you. What I can tell you is that your repertoire is a bad idea objectively. Maybe a psychologist who played chess could tell you after you opened up to them about your life or something.

You're not made unpredictable by playing 2 repertoires in online chess, because your opponents aren't researching you before the game and neither are you researching them. And you're not avoiding opening preparation by playing a bunch of 1. d4 lines. This is not a matter of personal preference these are facts about the opening. If you're playing alot OTB then could you leverage this to be sort of unpredictable - in a tournament setting, sure. Though the lines you're playing are common regardless, and you will need alot of theory to pull that off, not a little bit. These aren't uncommon lines. Even in a tournament setting there are much better ways of achieving unpredictability and escaping theory - like playing the english opening, or the nimzo larsen, or something like that.

d4 Keep It Simple

Book

Obviously when I'm talking about being impredictable and being very difficult to prepare against, I'm talking about OTB where my opponents can see all my games in a database, not online chess where my opponents are random and anonymous.

I'm not "playing 2 repertoires". I have 7 different setups, not 2. After my first two moves (1.d4 2.Nf3), my opponent still has absolutely no idea which of these 7 setups I am going to play. Even after my third and fourth moves, my opponent is still not sure exactly which setup I am going to play. The number of possible setups that I could adopt gradually decreases as I play moves. I stay flexible. I don't show my cards to my opponent. I request my opponent to give me information as to what he is going to play, and I try not to give to my opponent information as to what I am going to play. This is what makes me impredictable.

It's not obvious given your other bad ideas, such as the idea that 1. d4 is light on theory. Anyway, it's so much theory and the opening is already so common that it just isn't going to surprise people and it's not worth it - they aren't expecting 1. d4 from you, they're just expecting it from everyone.

If I always play the Nimzo-Larsen (1.b3), my opponents will be able to predict what I am going to play: I am going to play the Nimzo-Larsen. So I won't be impredictable. My opponents will prepare for the Nimzo-Larsen. If I play my 1.d4 2.Nf3 repertoire, my opponents won't be able to predict which setup I am going to adopt, they will have to prepare for 7 different possible setups, which is too difficult, so most of them will probably not bother preparing against me.

You keep strawmanning me. I never said that 1.d4 is light on theory. I said that the variations of 1.d4 that I am going to play (e.g. London, Torre, Colle, Slow Slav) are lighter on theory than those that I am not going to play (e.g. f4, f3, g3).

Not quite... it'll be more unpredictable in your first games against an opponent and less as they learn your lines. But that will always be true. However, you can also prepare novelties within lines you've already played, assuming the opening is rich enough... you don't necessarily need an entirely new repertoire to do this. Opponents also don't always have time to prepare specifically against you when they have a wide field to play against. If you notice someone playing the same line you played earlier... you can respond with some sideline. Surprise is useful on different levels - not only do you throw off the opponent, you also avoid their novelties and bring them into unfamiliar middlegames and pawn structures. But the nimzo-larsen will always fundamentally be more surprising than d4 openings which... everyone prepares deeply against, and has hundreds of games in, regardless of whether you play it, or Bob from the fish shop is playing it, or whoever else. For all you know what could happen is you play a Colle the first game and they're a little unprepared... you switch it up to a QGD the second game and they know the line 20 moves deep.

Some openings are surprise-based and more risky... so you might play them once against an opponent or once in a tournament, or against lower rated players or players you think probably didnt have time to prepare. Other openings are just classical and have been played millions of times, like the Ruy Lopez or QGD or London - you're not surprising people with these. Your goal there is really just to go so deep that it escapes the opponents prep, or to find novelties somewhere deep in the lines.

I never said that my goal was to surprise my opponents. I said that my goal was to be impredictable and to be very difficult to prepare against. This is not the same thing. With my 1.d4 2.Nf3 repertoire, I will be impredictable, my opponents won't be able to predict which setup I am going to adopt, making it very difficult to prepare against me right before the game, but I won't surprise anyone, because everyone knows about the London, the Torre, the Colle, etc, these are common openings.

They won't prepare as well against you specifically, they just will already be prepared since a third of players play 1. d4, and over half of those play 2. c4. Functionally there is not a very big difference.

"They won't prepare against you specifically, they just will already be prepared since a third of players play 1. d4... it's functionally the same thing." > No it's not. Opening preparation against a specific opponent and general opening preparation are two very different things. My goal is only to counter the former, not the latter.

I know that's your goal, it's just not a good goal. You should always strive to surprise the opponent, that's strategy 101. Go read "The art of war".

If they're already prepared against your played-out opening they don't need to prepare against you specifically, people know these d4 openings 20 moves deep in some cases, they're some of the most common lines in chess. For what you're doing there's not very much functional difference between them preparing against you specifically vs. being generally prepared. There is a slight difference, but it would not be worth drowning in theory to achieve, which is what you will be doing. It would be better to just focus on 1 repertoire and learn the lines deeper, or study a few different variations in some of your common lines. Generally people don't play classical openings to surprise the opponent or throw them off, the goal here is to go so deeply into the lines that you escape theory, not to sidestep theory, because you can't sidestep it.

It's just never a good idea to attempt to "escape an opponents prep" (however you want to characterize that) by playing d4/c4.

You said that your repertoire was going to be light on theory making its width manageable, then you said it will include d4/c4 positions. Btw - the London does not surprise people or get them out of theory. people hate the London and spend large amounts of time preparing against it. And the Colle - you will need to know theory in that opening just to make it work. The Slow Slav - players will either play the Schallop defense against that or a Meran semi-slav... you are not avoiding theory there. Avoiding theory in queens pawn openings means playing something like f4, or playing g3 or b3 at a strange time, or a rare line in the Torre, playing the Trompowsky or Levitsky attack, something like that.

You're right, you probably have more than 2 repertoires worth of moves you'll need to learn, actually.

Not including a few sidelines:

- the London setup you refer to is its own repertoire

- the c4/d4/Nf3 setup is its own repertoire

- the Torre combined with the Colle is its own repertoire

- you're playing the b3 Colle as well which is like half a repertoire

Okay so that's 5 setups... which 2 did I miss? Yeah you actually have more than 2 repertoires here, thanks for pointing that out.

And you're still deciding whether to mix in the Jobava too, right? So that's also its own repertoire.

My 7 setups:
- London
- Torre
- Colle-Koltanowski
- Colle-Zukertort
- c4, d4, e3, Bf4
- c4, d4, e3, Bg5
- c4, d4, e3, Bc1 (and later White will likely play b3 followed by Bb2)

But this is only a rough simplification. I might possibly play some other setups too, such as c3+d4+e4, the Jobava, the Benoni (d5 against ...c5), c4+d4+e4 against the KID.

But my 7 setups are not 7 "repertoires worth of moves [I]'ll need to learn". I will play 7 setups, but learning them will not take me 7 times more time than learning one average repertoire. Perhaps 3 times, but not 7 times. The first 4 systems are well-known for being quick and easy to learn. No, people don't "know these d4 openings 20 moves deep". In these systems, you just play chess, you don't play 20 moves of opening theory.

No, people don't "know these d4 openings 20 moves deep"

In the QGD modern or semi-slav meran - oh yes they do.

But my 7 setups are not 7 "repertoires worth of moves [I]'ll need to learn"

Which I never claimed, I think it's about 3.5.

"Perhaps 3"

You agree, and yet you're arguing - strange

Masters do. But not intermediate players like you and me.

On lichess at 2000 rapid the Lasker defense stays in theory until around move 17, go look at the stats yourself. And 2000 lichess rapid is not even that high rated. The QGD is one of the most theoretical lines in chess. And throughout the whole opening you'll be basically walking through a minefield of peoples prepared novelties. Playing an opening that popular and competitive takes alot of effort in studying theory. There are books written on the Lasker Defense, and chessable courses on it... the position doesnt even begin until move 7. Same with the other variations like the Tartakower - whole books of theory that don't begin until move 7.

This is not to mention all the sidelines black can go into before you even reach move 7.

You will not be throwing a player off by switching into the QGD.

The QGD Modern (Bf4) and the Semi-Slav Meran are not two average lines in my repertoire, they are the two sharpest and most theory-heavy lines that are in my repertoire. And that's assuming that the Meran even is in my repertoire. Against the Semi-Slav, I will either play Nbd2 exclusively, or I will sometimes play Nc3 (the Meran) and sometimes Nbd2. I haven't decided yet. Just because my repertoire has two theory-heavy lines doesn't mean that my whole repertoire will be theory-heavy. These two lines are the exception, not the rule. As I said, I will try to play "slow, quiet, solid, positional, strategic" lines, so in these two variations I will try to find the sub-variations that are the least sharp.

All the other openings that I play (including the Bg5 QGD) are "slow, quiet, solid, positional, strategic", so intermediate players have absolutely no need to memorize these openings 20 moves deep. In this kind of opening, if you make a mistake, typically, you won't get a completely lost position, you won't get mated, you won't lose tons of material, you will just get a small subtle positional disadvantage, no biggies.