One motivation for building a whole new opening repertoire from scratch is that having been fairly monogamous to the few openings I know for so long, there are whole vistas of the Chessboard I haven't visited yet.
In saying I know these openings, I really mean that having taken an interest in a particular opening years ago, I then proceeded to scour my book collection for all games in that opening and then played through only those games in which the side playing my opening won. This excercise will be a radical change in direction for a number of reasons.
No more 1. e4 and pushing for an open game come what may. Nor facing 1. d4 and having a vague notion about the basic ideas of the QGD and NimzoIndian then making the rest up as I go along. As to meeting 1. e4, I've never really known what to do. I used Alekhine's defense when I was younger, later contenting myself with 1. ... e5 and letting White call the shots, until finding a home in the French Defense a few years ago.
Giving up the French will be my only sorrow in all this; the idea of having a "cramped" position that withstands White's initial onslaught then explodes with energy on the counter-attack has always been attractive to me. Having a restrained position early in the game has never concerned me provided there are clear long term plans to follow, no doubt a function of the fact that the hypermoderns gave me the clearest understanding of how to conduct a game as a whole.
The first reference material for the new repertoire will be Reuben Fine's "The Ideas Behind The Chess Openings". Short, simple, lucid explainations of the basic ideas - if sometimes a little outdated now.
As White I'm going for the Reti, English, and Catalan systems. They appear to be somewhat inter-related and transpositional between each other, and I should be able to avoid most mainline King's Indian, Gruenfeld, and Queen's Gambits for the time being. I have Reti's "Masters Of The Chessboard" as a primary reference for his opening, Imre Konig's "Chess From Morphy To Botwinnik" for the English, and I'm still looking for something more solid on the Catalan.
Against 1. d4 I want to learn the Slav defenses primarily because it's a popular and solid opening, and I've never been there before. Still looking for a good reference on the ideas (as opposed to just the moves), it's something to do with not locking in your Queen's Bishop, except for when you do...
A defense to 1. e4 is the big problem, I've never been comfortable facing it because I'm fearless against anything playing it. It's never bothered me to have a crack at the Sicilian as White but this is most likely ignorant bliss. I'll be learning the Scheveningen from Kasparov's "Sicilian ... e6 and ... d6 Systems", and also investigating Hedgehog defenses from Mihail Suba's "Dynamic Chess Strategy", which I think will suit my temperament well.
With a little erudition, I can perhaps update my opening knowledge from being 100 years out of date to being only 30-50 years behind the times.
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