How To Choose Chess Openings

Welcome back to My Chess Blog once again!

In this blog, we are going to learn, How to Choose Chess Openings.

• Openings are a very important part of the game and trust me, playing them incorrectly could easily cost you the whole game.

Thus, if you play the correctly and exactly how it should be done, you will have a great position and your pieces will be ready for a wild battle.

Then, it will be up to you, how well you will convert the middlegame and the endgame, but we’ll speak about those in the next blogs.

Now, to keep it simple and to the point, I am going to pose two questions.

• Try to answer them in your head and once you do, continue reading below.

1. Do you like to attack, or do you like to defend more?
2. Do you like to play Gambits or solid Openings?

Now, once you are sure in your answers, let me try to be as universal as possible.

First, we have to understand, which openings are most suitable for your style.

• For example, an aggressive attacker will never rely on a slow opening, because that kind of opening fails to show this player’s potential.

That being said, let’s answer each question thoroughly and I will try to give a few opening suggestions, so you can implement them , if you like.

About the first question, I used to be a defensive player, so I liked balanced openings, where no big amount of theory was involved.

That way, I could focus more on the positions and not the theory itself.

If you feel, that this is basically your type of style, I would recommend playing :

1. Scotch opening w/White

Try to remember this formation, in case you play this opening.

• The Scotch Opening arises after the moves : 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4.

It is a very popular choice among Grandmasters and in general, this opening is both very aggressive and solid at the same time.

That way, you can choose, which style would you like to follow.

• Remember, that the key pieces in this opening are the Bishop Pair, the King’s knight and finally, c-pawn and f-pawn.

Once you develop these pieces and castle on either side, make sure to keep your king safe.

If you completed all of these steps, it’s time to attack the black king!

If you want to know more about these openings, you can check out a vast amount of videos here. (Since there are many good ones, I leave it up to you)

2. French defence w/Black

Again, if you’d like to research this opening, know this pawn formation very well.

• The French Defense arises after the following move order : 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5.

Again, this is a very solid and good opening and although I do not play it myself, I used it at some point in my career.

• It is a high-class opening, that produces exciting and ruthless games.

This is a defensive opening in most cases, but that doesn’t stop aggressive players from enjoying this opening.

• The key pieces in this opening are the King’s Kinght, c-pawn, Queen and the King’s Bishop.

(Note : Although there is theory involved in this opening, try to learn 2–3 variants only. After that, experiment with it yourself and try to figure out good moves, without the help of a computer.)

Other pieces could be very useful too, but after developing them all, focus on their activity. It’s what matters mostly in this opening.

• After the first 10–15 moves, the Openings are usually over.

That being considered, once you are in the middlegame, try to use your chances correctly and effectively!

If you’d like to research this opening more, I recommend checking out these high-quality educational videos here.

(Note : Since there are many openings out there and many more variations, I can’t show all the replies and all good openings)

Let’s move on the next Question.

If you like playing with the White pieces and you like to play gambits most of the time, I would recommend playing the Scotch gambit.

This opening is very common and useful at the same time.

This is only a sub-variation of the Scotch Game.

This opening is very aggressive and the key pieces stay the same, but in this case, pay very close attention to black pieces.

• If they don’t have any piece mobility and their king is badly placed, use your pawns quickly and attack as fast as you can!

This opening is not too risky and gives you the opportunity to play attacking chess, while being really safe. (Unless you fail to defend your king).

• That being said, this is a very good choice for aggressive players.

If you like to play Gambits and you are playing with the Black Pieces, you could try the Scandinavian Defense, popularized by Chess World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. (Read more about him here)

This is the beginning of this opening.

• The Scandinavian Defense arises after the moves 1.e4 d5.

This is a wild opening and it starts attacking from move 1, so Black tries to heavily rely on White’s mistakes.

Once they fail to recognize even a single big threat or a checkmating idea, Black can easily dominate White.

• On the other hand, Black can get punished for their wild claims, because this is a double-edged opening.

That means, mistakes are usually unforgivable.

• So, the key pieces for Black are the Queen, e-pawn, Queen’s Bishop, Knight Pair and the Queen’s Rook.

If Black uses them wisely and correctly and White proceeds to play without mistakes, we will have an very exciting game.

• Remember, in the Scandinavian Opening, the Queen is very powerful, so avoid trading it early, because that will gradually slow down your attack.

If you’d like to know more about this opening, a popular Youtuber, International Master GothamChess (Levy Rozman), made a detailed video about this opening.

Finally, if you consider yourself a solid player and you like to play with both sides, I will start with the White Pieces.

Although there are vast amount of openings, which are totally suitable for this category, from my experience and 6 years of playing,I can only recommend the Italian Game.

This is the start of this opening.

• The Italian Game arises after the following moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4.

This opening can be played in different styles, so if you want to be defensive, attacking or balanced, you can do all of them with this opening.

• This is one of the oldest openings ever discovered and it is time-tested. The first professional chess player, Gioachino Greco, played it and won amazingly in under 20 moves.

The key pieces for this opening are c, d,e-pawns, the Bishop Pair and the Knight Pair. Make sure to position them well, so they can easily jump in the attack.

Once you implement this opening and feel, that you need to learn some theory now…

A Croatian Youtuber, Stjepan Tomic, or Hanging Pawns, made a good, short video, that explains everything under 25 minutes (Again, not a promo or a sponsorship).

In conclusion, I think, that the Italian Game is one of the most important openings, that every chess player should know.

If you are playing with the Black pieces instead and like to play solidly, I would recommend learning the Morphy Defence, against the Spanish Opening by White.

The start of Morphy Defense.

• Although this is a certain case of a solid opening, it is worth to be learned, because if you do not know, how to respond to any classical opening, losing in a couple of moves is unavoidable in most cases.

This Defense solely focuses on neutralizing the light-squared bishop, which tends to be very active in the Ruy Lopez.

• After the pawn move 3.a6, the Bishop has to go back to a4, or capture the knight. (If it doesn’t do either of those things, we’ll just capture it for free)

The key pieces in this opening are : a, b-pawns, Queen’s Bishop, King’s Knight, f-pawn and King’s rook.

• Note : Queen is a key piece too, but along with the f-pawn, don’t develop it early or quickly, because it can get you in a losing position.

Instead, wait, make sure, that your position is fine and comfortable and before moving these pieces, think about White’s possible responses and recheck multiple times (3–8 is enough) for danger.

• Once you are 1,000% sure, that these piece movements won’t get you in a much worse position or cost you the game’s result, you can proudly make the move.

The Youtuber, Hanging Pawns, also has a good, short video about this opening too. You can check it out here for more information.

• Finally, I want to add, that if you have any kind of questions, leave them down in the comments below.

It is impossible to cover all the openings and all the variations, because there are literally millions of them, but I will try my best to help you improve!

Enjoyed this blog? Leave a comment, a clap or share, so more people get educated!

Thank you for reading my blog!