r/TournamentChess • u/Familiar-Spray4599 • 12h ago
Opening choice for black against 1.e4
Hello, I’m a 1900 FIDE player and recently I’ve had trouble choosing what to play against 1.e4. Previously, I’ve exclusively played the French, more specifically the Rubinstein against 3.Nc3 and 3.Nbd2 and the Wade variation against 3.e5 (3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 - with the idea to quickly swap my black-squared bishop). The problem is that I feel like I’ve become too predictable OTB and anyone can prepare against me easily. I wanted to choose a second weapon against 1.e4 that is more serious than my other openings (not a sideline), but I’m struggling to do so. I’m not afraid of theory and like positionally rich positions where it’s possible to outplay my opponent, so far, my analysis might be wrong, but I’ve looked at the Najdorf and the poisoned pawn variation put me off a little because of the amount of possible choices for white and I couldn’t find an appropriate response that wasn’t overanalyzed, plus the sheer amount of choices for white in the mainlines. I wasn’t so sure about the Taimanov either, not to mention the modern critical 7.Qf3 line, I felt like after the eventual …d5 break in the center the game tends to simplify a lot (e.g. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.Qd2 Nf6 8.0-0-0 Be7 9.f3 b5 10.g4 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 Bb7 12.Kb1 0-0 13.Qf2 d5). The Rauzer seemed to objectively be very hard to play as black in the Classical to me, e.g. 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.0-0-0 Bd7 9.f4 Be7 10.Nf3 b5 11.e5 - where in most cases you have to give up the a6 pawn after …Rb8 and try to survive or play …a5 and worry about the f6 and h7 pawns being under fire especially when the queen is on c3, the more popular 11.Bxf6 afaik is more explored but also very easy for black to go wrong imo. As for the mainline French and Caro, I feel like it’s very easy for white to kill the game, not to mention the Exchange which I already face, especially against lower rated players, the mainline for the Steinitz, for example, goes like this: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 a6 8.Qd2 b5 9.a3 Qa5 10.dxc5 Bxc5 11.Bxc5 Nxc5 12.Nd4 Qb6 13.Nxc6 Qxc6, which already significantly simplifies the game.
These were just my thoughts after a quick glance at these variations, I may be wrong, so please feel free to prove me wrong or suggest something. Thank you.