My Chessable Course Is Out!

A full repertoire for White in 100 lines starting with 1. Nf3

My new course, 100 Repertoires: Reti (1. Nf3) is now available on Chessable. It’s a full repertoire for White in 100 lines starting with 1. Nf3.

Why Nf3? Well I had always been intrigued that in the Lichess database, Nf3 is played far less often than e4 (4% vs. 59%), yet scores better. I suspected this very natural knight move, developing a piece towards the center, was a bit underrated. A 2021 paper by DeepMind, Acquisition of Chess Knowledge in AlphaZero, provides more support for this idea. They show that whereas human chess theory has been dominated by a few first moves, especially e4, AlphaZero – with no preexisting prejudices – takes a much more balanced view of the first moves. In particular, it seems to think Nf3 is just about as good as e4.

In opening preparation there is usually a tension between playing good moves and surprising your opponent. You want to play good moves, but naturally, your opponent will try to be most prepared for those moves, so to surprise them you often have to play something a little dodgy. But in the case of Nf3, you can play a move that is just about as good as the more popular first moves, but your opponents only face 4% of the time. To my poker brain that seemed like a huge opportunity.

Of course, one move does not a repertoire make. I still had to decide how I would follow up Nf3. To do this I took some inspiration from the London. Now I know that everyone is sick to death of the London (except London players, I guess). But I do think there is a good reason for the London’s popularity. Namely, having a core setup that can be used against many Black responses helps many players feel more comfortable and confident going into the game. Grandmasters might turn their noses up at such considerations, but for amateur players, there’s real value in this kind of confidence.

My core setup is Nf3, g3, Bg2, 0-0. Much like the London, these moves form a setup that is so solid there’s not much Black can do to make them look bad. You get all your kingside pieces developed harmoniously and get castled, which already sidesteps a lot of the most common types of opening disasters. But whereas the London has become massively popular (and therefore your opponents will usually be prepared for it), this kingside fianchetto setup has never really caught on in the same way, at least at the amateur level. Consequently, your opponents are much less likely to be prepared for it.

The last piece of the puzzle was deciding which central pawn break to go for. We are going for a “hypermodern” strategy of aiming pieces at the center before deploying the pawns, but that doesn’t mean we won’t ever use the center pawns. You have to send them in eventually or you’ll just get run over by your opponent’s center pawns. Broadly speaking, there are three choices: e4, d4, or c4. The move e4 leads to the King’s Indian Attack, which can certainly work well, but there are already several good Chessable courses on it, so I wanted to go a different way. Next up, d4 will often transpose to the Catalan, one of the most hotly contested openings in modern theory. Given that one of the main ideas of the course is to avoid mainstream theory, this didn’t really fit. That left c4, which ended up being a great option. Chesswise this move makes a lot of sense: the c4 pawn teaming up with the bishop on g2 to pressure a Black pawn on d5, often opening up the long diagonal for our fianchettoed bishop. I also found that many of the c4 lines score extremely well in the Lichess data.

As far as who this course is for, it’s aimed at that broad swath of players between beginners and masters, variously called club players, amateurs, or adult improvers. If you are just getting started with chess, I think it makes a lot of sense to play classically with 1. e4. This repertoire is designed to be a bit of a curveball, but if you don’t yet have a fastball, it won’t make much sense. On the other side, players at the master level usually have their own ideas about the opening – although there are some interesting ideas here even for grandmasters. I’ve been using this repertoire successfully against titled players in blitz. That said, the course is really targeted at players in the middle. This is where a trickier option like Nf3 really shines, as many of your opponents will be well prepared for 1. e4, but have little or nothing against 1. Nf3. Imagine that – you can take many opponents out of book with your very first move, which is not even worse than the more popular options. I also set the filters in the Lichess database to target lines that have proven to score extremely well at the club level.

So, if you’re looking for a repertoire for White, I hope you’ll give the course a shot. It’s a full repertoire in just 100 lines, so unlike a lot of opening courses or books, you can realistically learn the whole thing in a week (of course, it will take some practice to get good at playing the resulting middlegames). The lines are a change of pace that will take many of your opponents by surprise, and they are proven to score really well in practice. My biggest hope for the course is that the lines allow you to win more games while spending less time on the opening.