Every chess player needs a high-quality answer to 1.
e4, and there is nothing more reliable than 1.
Black stakes a claim in the centre and prepares to deploy his pieces on good squares.
The challenge nowadays is to build a robust repertoire without being overwhelmed by the volume of material and continual advances in opening theory.
In Playing 1.
e4 e5 A Classical Repertoire, Nikolaos Ntirlis offers the best of both worlds: a complete repertoire against 1.
e4, built on sound positional prin.