Starting Out: 1d4

Building and maintaining an opening repertoire can be a demanding task — for a start there are an enormous number of different lines to choose from. There's a strong temptation amongst beginners and improving players to opt solely for tricky lines in order to snare unsuspecting opponents, but this approach has only short—term value. As players improve and their opponents become stronger, very often these crafty lines don't stand up to close scrutiny, and suddenly they back to square one wit...