My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black

Every chess player needs to decide which openings he or she is going to play. But where do you start?

The risk of drowning in the turbulent sea of chess opening theory is only too real for beginning amateurs. Often your goals and ambitions will be misguided.

If you are trying to win in 20 moves, copy what's in fashion among top-GMs or memorize variations, you are wasting your time.

Most likely you will never get to play your 'preparation' and end up aimlessly switching from one opening to the other.

Learn the super-cool Icelandic Gambit

After the success of his volume for White, experienced French chess trainer we can now provide Vincent Moret's complete, ready-to-go chess opening repertoire for Black.

It consists of a sound set of lines that do not outdate rapidly, do not require memorization and are easy to digest for beginners and post-beginners.

Lines to master include:

- The spicy Icelandic Gambit
- The Portuguese Variation of the Scandi
- The Albin Counter-Gambit
- The Stonewall
- The English and the Réti

To show the typical plans and the underlying ideas in the various lines of his repertoire, Moret not only selected games of Grandmasters. He also uses games of young, improving players to highlight the errors they tend to make.

Vincent Moret (1968) has been teaching chess and training talented youngsters for more than 20 years. Many of his pupils have won important prizes and some have become Masters and Grandmasters.

Course stats

For: black pieces

Total students: 224

Recommended for: Beginning players Casual players Intermediate players

Trainable variations: 358

Alternative variations: 24

Informational variations: 111

Puzzles: 76

Avg. line depth: 13.40

Instruction: 75,511 words

Released on: Feb 19, 2018

Support level: Community

Section: 📚 Publisher

My First Chess Opening Repertoire for Black has

4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 16 user ratings.

Variation Details

5 x The Scandinavian (12.80 avg depth)

44 x The Icelandic Gambit (10.32 avg depth)

33 x Portuguese Variation: Quiet Line with 4.Be2 (14.67 avg depth)

57 x Portuguese Variation: Classical System with 4.Nf3 (14.72 avg depth)

53 x Portuguese Variation: Critical Line with 4.f3 (15.98 avg depth)

19 x The Modern Variation (18.05 avg depth)

33 x Odds and Ends (11.27 avg depth)

83 x The Albin Countergambit (12.87 avg depth)

68 x The Stonewall: an unbreachable fortress (16.22 avg depth)

31 x The English and the Réti (12.00 avg depth)

67 x The irregular openings (9.88 avg depth)

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Comments

Last 10 Position Comments

NikolasTheiss 2,762,540 3. Nc3 Nxd5 and now if White tries to bring out Black's queen with 4. Nxd5 Qxd5 this isn't a problem for us because White has no profitable way to attack the queen. For example, 5. c4 Qe4+ 6. Qe2 Qxe2+ 7. Bxe2 e5 and Black has a good grip on the d4 square plus White's pawn on c4 restricts his bishop. 11 hours ago

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devilfish 169,400 what if white plays 3.Nc3 1 week ago

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Exacto 2,643,720 Correction of text request.
The last line of text shown "II. The sacrifice . . . " should be deleted, because it is actually a header inroduction for Game 69. 2 weeks ago

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mavu 4,426,140 And why doesn't 8. Nc3 work now like it would have after 7...Qh5?

Oh, it's because Black doesn't need to move 8...Bd6 since Qf5 already prevents Bf4. Maybe. 3 weeks ago

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Exacto 2,643,720 Beeping.alarm, you are correct that the position ends in a way that leaves Black up a pawn.

But you have misinterpreted the 0-1, due to a typo in the study line. First, every study line is identified by the illustrative game where the line appears in the physical book. Then at the end of the study line is the result of the Illustrative Game. Here Black eventually won Game 7, so 0-1 is shown.
Second the typo in this page is that Chessable didn't separate the Illustrative Game result from the study line. If you look at the other study lines, you'll see that the game result is set off from the study moves by several lines of open space. Management missed that formatting for this particular line.
Third, you can confirm this is correct by viewing the complete illustrated game. This study line comes from the notes to White's move 10. 1 month ago

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beeping.alarm 1,268,270 0-1 seems like an overstatement. Because of the white bishop on f3 there is no back rank mate threat. Most likely, the queens and rooks will be exchanged. When the dust settles, black will be up a pawn, but white will have the bishop pair in an open position. 1 month ago

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jabe 1,324,100 I see what you mean! I especially struggle in identical-looking positions, too, when studying the opening. Personally, I've found that writing my own interpretation of the position/variation (as private comments) helps the ideas stick.

May help you, too. Who knows. :D 2 months ago

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BenRedic 3,541,490 It does, thanks.

I find myself struggling when there are different moves or move orders possible in a number of identical or similar positions, so I am trying to weed them out when I come across them, either by pausing them, requesting a soft fail or get some clarification why some move does not work. In this case I see your point about Qg5. Let's hope I remember it in my drills :-) 2 months ago

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BenRedic 3,541,490 Thanks, but I've paused this line either way. I prefer to drill only one single move for every position. 2 months ago

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jabe 1,324,100 11...e4 doesn't quite cut it. White has 12.Qg5, after which, 12...Qxg5 13.Nxg5 Nce5 with a huge advantage for White.

With 11...Nd4, however, 12.Qxg5?? doesn't work because Black can capture the Knight on f3 with check and deliver mate: 12...Nxf3+ and 13...Qh2#. I hope that helps! 2 months ago

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