Hey, I was wondering, if either through your own research, or if you came across it in reading, if there are any works and/or general assessments of openings that produce similar positions. Openings one might include in a repertoire because of similarities in play.

For example, I've come across some QGA lines that look similar to Alekhine's defense, and there are some lines of the Meran Slav that (at a cursory glance) might be mistaken for a Sveshnikov Sicilian middle game.

Any comments?

B.

Some openings that tend to be similar and/or transpose into each other:

Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and Caro-Kann - I actually had an opponent do this by declining the gambit initially with 2. c6 tonight (1. d4 d5 2. e4 c6 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. f3 and we eventually got into a normal BDG type position)
Pirc, Modern Defense, and Alekhine where white doesn't play 2. e5
Sicilian 2. c3 can transpose into French Advance pretty easily. For that matter, the Smith-Morra Gambit declined is the 2. c3 Sicilian by transposition.

--Fromper

A way to find similarities among chess openings is to look at their pawn structure. Soltis book "Pawn Structure Chess" (Amazon.com: Pawn Structure Chess: Books: Andrew Soltis)
in some way covers this subject and could be an interesting add on to your chess collection. Try to have a look at it at your local bookstore and see if it fits your needs.

These are just my two cents
VindalooMan

Probably the earliest edition(s) I ever read on Openings and related pawn
positions, transpositions was in Reuben Fine's Opening books, PCO and
How to Play the Chess Openings.
Reinfeld may have written on the subject as well on games concerned with
Keres, Smyslov and others. (Book no longer available).
THen there is the classic by Hans Kmoch, Pawn Power.
Of the above, see PCO on the Queen's Gambit, and Caro Kann especially.

I think I'll just keep this here since the question's related. does anyone know what many of the top players use for the Sicilian these days? There are so many variations, if one were to study, which one to choose from? Which were trendy but now out of favor? There's the Najdorf, Dragon, Kan, Sveschnikov etc .... you get the idea. Any comments?

My preference for openings is dictated by the fact that I have neither the time nor inclination to study a lot of theory so tend to play “systems” that can mostly be played no matter what my opponent does. One word of caution: If you elect, say, the K-Indian Attack you still have to know the proper strategy to follow depending on Black’s setup. For example K-Indian, French, Sicilian, Q-Indian type setups by Black will require a different White strategy. Many times QGD and Caro-Kann set ups are very similar so you could try them.

I don’t use opening books, preferring a database instead. I play over the games with my selected openings to learn middlegame patterns & themes. This is important for two reasons. First a recent survey of my postal games against opponents rated over 2000 revealed the average time before we were out of games in my 3.2 million game db was only 10-11 moves. Against lower rated players it was even fewer. A book would have been pretty much useless. Second when your opponent deviates from your book (or memorized) line, what are you going to do? By knowing themes and patterns well into the middlegame you won’t be at a loss for how to continue.

Sounds like excellent and logical advice to me, thanks.