Hello everyone, I am Mitrabha Guha, a Grandmaster from India. Today we will be learning how to play the (in)famous London System as White.
If you aren't familiar with it, the London System has a reputation of being an extremely solid line that Black players often dread to face. We will be playing d4 and Bf4 for our first two moves almost every game, and then we will develop with Nf3, e3, (c3 or c4 as necessary), Be2/Bd3, 0-0. Once we are developed, we have multiple attacking plans that are very strong and hard to defend against; so despite being 'solid', it is far from boring to play.
As a London System player, we avoid a lot of mainline theory that openings like the Queen's Gambit would require us to learn. This allows us to focus more on learning the common plans associated with the various London pawn structures. It is one of the best openings to learn as a newer player, because it lets us focus on improving our middlegame and endgame skills without needing to spend too much time on memorizing opening theory.
Play pawn to d4.