And all of this misses my original point ... to wit, one of the easiest openings for a RAW BEGINNER to learn ... is the Colle. 

And I have played the King's Gambit myself ... hundreds of times in blitz. And I know that occasionally I have lost to a player 1000 points below me ... when things go wrong in a KG, it gets nasty, really quick. 

You simply don't teach openings to your students- period and fullstop.

I have coached a few GM's, but I never bothered to show them openings.

Just shaping up their playing style, and learning them how to deal with complex strategical and tactical setups. They formed their opening repertoire themselves, AFTER they have achieved a personal playing style.

This is the well-known inaccuracy which allows 4...Nxe4 with a good game for Black- although Black's best line is not the one most authorities suggest.

I can't see you letting a raw beginner have opening disaster after opening disaster ... and you would never intervene and offer advice? (I find that one hard to even believe.) I certainly would not call it coaching.

You wanna find out what real coaching is, go out and WATCH/OBSERVE what they do. No facet of the game (any game, football, baseball, etc) is left out. From first steps, to dealing with an advanced player, really good coaches seem to be able to do it all. 

I think that chess coaching should be no different. 

No, I do not offer any opening courses to newbies. I just teach them playing chess, not memorizing variations.

The ones that like the game and have interest in it, can sit down and study openings by themselves. My only advice is picking up something SIMPLE and ACTIVE, which means: certainly not the Colle.

You have your thoughts, I have mine. 

Probably another easy opening to learn is the Giuoco Piano ... as you develop pieces simply, to their natural squares. But if you play that way, they have to have one line for the French, one line for the Sicilian, one line for the Caro-Kann, on line for the Modern, one line for the Alekhine's Defense, etc. 

Whereas - with the Colle - you teach them the FUNDAMENTALS of chess. (Opening principles.) (The first link is to an entire website dedicated to teaching the openings ... the second one is an explanation of my own personal system in chess. It is unique, and differs from both what most Americans teach and the "Russian School of Chess.") 

It sounds like - to me - that you have very little experience actually taking young charges to a tournament, where I have done it more times than I can count. 

One last time - my article was aimed at the raw beginner. I have actually set down and taught someone the moves ... more times than I can recall. And thanks to my own "Beginner's Chess Course," (which Yahoo credited as being one of the most popular downloads in all of GeoCities, before GC closed!); I have taught countless others to play chess, via the Internet. 

Unless I forget something big, you didn't teach me anything.

Bankwell - obviously - came in here to sound off and look foolish, in this regard, he succeeded magnificently.