thedreamer wrote on 12/30/13 at 15:22:40:


I think then the Queen's Gambit Declined is a good choice for you against d4. It is not terribly heavy when it comes to theory (compared to the slav or the grünfeld for example), very solid, not very sharp and black has clear strategic aims. And actually there is a very good starting out book on it by Neil McDonald which and another very good book by Matthew Sadler. Either would be sufficient at ELO 1700, though you might do a bit of work on the Catalan in both cases.
The Queen's Gambit Declined is also, in my opinion, very helpful for general chess education and understanding of refined systems (such as the Nimzo-Indian). You will also find many high class games you can learn from.

I think that, to get recommendations on this site, you might need to specify a bit more information, such as your rating and positional preferences (messy or neat, sharp or quiet, etc.) and your strengths and weaknesses (attack, defense, maneuvering, endgame). 

Regarding your English, "I don't like amounts of theory" is a mistake. "I don't like a lot of theory" would be the normal phrase. Also "I often play X," not "I play often X," is correct. "I play often" is correct when there is no direct object, i.e. when the verb is used intransitively.