Queens Pawn Game - Raise Your Level
The Queens Pawn Game contains the QGD, the Slavs and
Indian Systems. There are also several smaller, but important, independent openings available after 1.d4.
You have sharp, theoretical openings like the Trompowsky Attack and the Dutch Defense. Then you have positionally orientated schemes like the London System and the Colle System.
1.d4 games can lead to any conceivable position. The pawn structures can take very different forms. Careful maneuvering or sharp and sacrificial, you'll find something of interest here.
Queens Pawn Game: Colle System - 1.d4, 2.Nf3, 3.e3, 4.Bd3, 5.0-0, 6.Re1, 7.c3, 8.Nbd2, 9.e4
The Colle System is kind of similar to the London System except instead of being outside the pawn shell, now White's dark square Bishop is on it's home square. This isn't necessarily disastrous since White's main idea in the opening is to prep the e4 advance.
Black can sometimes play ...b6 and ...Ba6 to try and exchange his poor Bishop off for White's star minor piece on d3. If he can get rid of White's light square Bishop he can maybe blunt White's attacking power. After ...0-0 and ...Re8 another key defensive idea for Black is ...Nd7-f8 defending the h7 square.
The Colle System is solid if not spectacular for White. Black should be able to equalize with sensible play. It is a reliable system to get you to the middlegame in one piece.
If you can say you have a command of these openings then you are a positional titan not to be messed with. You are also a tactician who can land vicious blows with deadly accuracy.
The Queen's Pawn Game gives you a solid positional platform as White to create tactical opportunities that are difficult to refute. You can combat these ideas as Black with a
diverse arsenal of weapons ranging from the
super-solid to the razor-sharp.
All that being said there are more than two ways to start a game of chess. If you want a change of scenery from 1.e4 and 1.d4 you can have it. There's another completely separate genre out there. This is chess on the wings. The most important of these systems is the
English Opening.