Marc Benford wrote on 01/11/24 at 18:53:15:
you can't play only 1 defense
Well I think the Modern Defense
1..g6 counts as only one. Even if
1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Nc3 black can stay in independent waters. Maybe you could argue
1.b3!? avoids it. Also there is a universal
1...d6 2...c6 (or
vice versa) "busy-person special" analysed by Davies (and by Wincor before him).
At one time I played "everything". In other words I didn't have any deep opening prep anywhere, rather I played hit-and-run against each opponent. Then when I needed to face titled players I went to the other extreme and played a very narrow
1.e4 e5 and
1.d4 d5 repertoire. Better openings and better chess overall, but it was a bit of work since my opponents could count on me to play the same opening when we met again. Also I had to accept an unwanted draw from time to time. These days the trend with titled players is to play varied openings, to avoid falling into some memorized computer line. Preparing one super-sharp line is possible, preparing three is too much of a strain, and even preparing one such line is discouraged if there's only a 33% chance of using it. That makes sense to me, so I have added a couple of alternative defenses against each of
1.e4 and
1.d4.