Ratsma’s Complete Black & White Repertoire FM Midas Ratsma

Take The Upper-Hand with this Principled
“Hammer the Center” Repertoire
for Black and White

Gain an opening edge more consistently with this center-focused repertoire for both colors! Back-to-back pawn breaks activate your pieces double-time… clarify the pawn structure… and with it, your plan for the next 10 to 14 moves.

Author Midas Ratsma shows you the ins and outs.

He’s a FIDE master… a chess coach… and one of the finest authors on Chessable with over 530 star-studded ratings.

Students love Ratsma’s practical, memory-friendly move selection — plus the rich tactics and attacking opportunities he offers.

In Ratsma’s Complete Black & White Repertoire, he checks both boxes by following a simple opening strategy:

Challenge the first enemy pawn that steps up to the center.

Not only shutting down the opponent’s bid for space, but also…

Defining the Central Structure and the
Placement of Your Pieces Around It

So you’ll feel at home in the opening and beyond, especially with the repertoire’s average line depth of 14 moves.

Collaborating with top Dutch Grandmaster Roeland Pruijssers, Ratsma’s goal was to make this repertoire as reliable as possible.

Here’s how you play with White:

Play 1.e4 to open as many lines for your pieces as possible… follow-up with the d4-break to open lines some more… and capture the first black pawn that advances to the center.

Through 19 chapters, Ratsma shows you how to:

Pierce 1…e5 from all directions with the dagger-like bishops of the Scotch Opening.

The Scotch vs 1…e5:
Pins and diagonal attacks give
White a lasting initiative

Seize the d5-square in the Open Sicilian. Or control 2/3 of the board with a “fistful” of pawns and pieces on the 4th rank.

Seamless coordination versus the Sicilian!
White plans Qe2, Rad1, followed by
g4-g5 to smash the kingside

Melt Black’s central presence away with the Exchange Variation versus the Caro-Kann and French Defense. So your isolated queen’s pawn can lead the attack.

Deny the slow game Caro and French players
seek by launching an attack on the back
of your isolated queen’s pawn

And steamroll sidelines like the Scandinavian, Alekhine, and Owen’s Defense with the classic e4-and-d4 pawn duo.

With Black, Ratsma follows the same strategy of defining the central pawn structure as soon as possible.

But this time, “forcing” White to initiate the pawn exchanges for you.

Ratsma deals 1.e4 a dose of its own medicine with this aggressive Berlin Defense. It features a centralized knight spearheading your attack through the dark squares.

In this hacker’s version of the Berlin Defense,
positional sacrifices for a sustained
attack are standard fare

He also straps a ticking Semi-Tarrasch “time bomb” on 1.d4 — with White’s fleeting activity losing to your queenside pawns the longer the game goes…

White doesn’t have enough firepower on the
kingside, while Black is about to decide
the game on the queenside

And repurposes the same opening ideas against the English, Reti, London, and more. So you’re always playing in familiar territory.

Here’s a quick recap of what you’re getting:

🎯 A complete repertoire for Black and White with 971 MoveTrainer® variations. Playable up to master-level, so you never have to worry about openings again.

🎯 7 Quickstarter chapters to bring you up to speed with the must-know variations fast. So you can start playing and winning with Ratsma’s repertoire sooner rather than later.

🎯 And over 28 hours of video hammering the “rules of thumb”… short and long-term plans for both sides… and the tactics hidden in the position.

Ratsma’s Complete Black & White Repertoire can give you 20/20 clarity in the opening… and skyrocket your score with both colors.