Keep It Simple: 1. d4

IM Christof Sielecki spent a year working on this, even holing himself up in a house by the sea in Germany to get it just perfect.

And now it's ready: we are proud to present Keep It Simple: 1.d4, without a doubt our biggest release yet and, we believe, an opening repertoire that will last you a lifetime.

UPDATED FOR 2020: Get up and running fast with the new Quickstarter chapter with 100 variations. All handpicked by IM Sielecki.

The man behind the ChessExplained YouTube channel, Chessable's most successful author, has put together everything you could ever need to play 1.d4 as white in one course.

Keep It Simple: 1.d4 is:

✅ clear;
✅ precise;
✅ easy to learn;
✅ suitable for strong players;
✅ suitable for improving players;
✅ built by someone who really understands Chessable.

In short, this is the ideal course for our platform. That should be no surprise considering IM Sielecki's 1.e4 course won plaudits all over the world.

We know of GMs on Chessable who bought it, but we also know of beginners who bought it. The release was a best-seller and even made it from a Chessable online course into print.

And don't forget, KIS 1.e4 also won the 2018 ChessPub Book of the Year award.

A repertoire to last a lifetime

Now, we believe the bigger, better 1.d4 is one-up from that. IM Sielecki has built a better repertoire for a better platform. He presents a comprehensive set of lines with 28 hours of optional video-sync instruction to help you understand the real essence of his choices.

This course has a far higher word count compared to KIS e4 and the variation count is also higher because I included many lines to illustrate typical ideas and middlegame plans, so it's not just about some initial moves, but also a guideline how to play many positions after the opening.
- IM Christof Sielecki

Overall, this is as lean as a 1.d4 repertoire of this quality can get.

Here is a course you really don't want to miss. It will equip you for everything and give you a repertoire that will last a lifetime.

Like this course and want a full simple repertoire for Black? Check out Keep It Simple for Black

Or if you're interested in a 1.e4 repertoire, check out
Keep It Simple: 1.e4

Course Options

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Course stats

For: white pieces

Recommended for: Casual players Intermediate players Advanced players Expert players

Language: English

Instruction: 107,292 words

Paid video: 32 hours and 51 minutes

Free video: 3 hours and 21 minutes

Quickstart variations: 100

Trainable variations: 1009

Informational variations: 1

Avg. line depth: 13.67

Released on: Jun 07, 2019

Support level: High

Section: 🎓 Titled player

Keep It Simple: 1. d4

has 4.7 out of 5 stars, based on 261 user ratings.

Variation Details

101 x 1. Quickstarter Guide (13.84 avg depth)

83 x 2. ...d5: Sidelines / Tarrasch (12.49 avg depth)

111 x 3. ...d5 and ...c5: Grünfeld Reversed (15.40 avg depth)

123 x 4. ...d5 and ...e6: The Catalan (15.40 avg depth)

64 x 5. ...d5 & ...Bf5: ...Bf5 Setups (13.47 avg depth)

35 x 6. ...d5 & ...Bg4: ...Bg4 Setups (12.57 avg depth)

86 x 7. ...g6 and ...d5: Grünfeld-style Setups (14.67 avg depth)

80 x 8. ...g6 and ...d6: King's Indian Setups (15.38 avg depth)

66 x 9. ...e6 and ...c5: Benoni Declined with ...e6 (13.06 avg depth)

38 x 10. ...g6 and ...c5: Benoni Declined with ...g6 (14.03 avg depth)

64 x 11. The early ...c5: Benoni Systems (10.25 avg depth)

52 x 12. The early ...b5: The Anti-c4 approach (12.29 avg depth)

87 x 13. The early ...b6: Queen's Indian Setups (13.89 avg depth)

89 x 14. The early ...f5: Dutch Setups (12.78 avg depth)

31 x 15. Black plays something else: Odds and Ends (10.06 avg depth)

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