Beginner Chess Openings?

Gambits and nothing but gambits. You need to practice tactics and using initiative which is to chess what body-building is to a boxer or wrestler.  By playing a gambit, you are essentially saying "I will lose horribly and quickly if I don't attack and go for his throat immediately" and given the kind of opponents you will be facing (also beginners or slightly better) you will have a sink-or-swim situation where you will not be allowed to LAZILY use opening theory as a crutch.

So yeah, thanks for the all responses, and as for "Really? Most beginners wouldn't know the Kholmov Gambit." I made a mistake there when I said I knew the traps, I assumed he was refering to the trap that earns the queen. I'm getting mixed opinions on the lopez and the King's Gambit. I got good stuff for the Scotch and I like it so I'm def gonna stick with it. But the lopez and KG are still up in the air.

I don't think it is necessary to play gambits - I never play gambit all my life except the Queen's Gambit. Look at what happen to me.

Anyway for a beginner - here is what I recommend.

As white,

1) guicco piano. 1 e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 (my first ever opening)

2) against french do the exchange, 1 e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3 exd5 exd5 4. c3 and then place your bishop at d3, castle 0-0 and then attack Black's kingside

3) against caro do the exchange, 1 e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3 exd5 cxd5 4. c3 and then place your bishop at d3, castle 0-0 and then attack Black's kingside

4) against the sicilian, I recommend that you to study the alapin. 1e4 c5 2 c3

Or you can try the

5) colle, torre, london, colle-zukertort etc

For black just pick one or two mainline openings and play almost all your chess career!

You won't go wrong!

EVANS GAMBIT IS NOT A BEGINNER OPENING D:

Ruy Lopez is too deep for beginners with white. Giuoco Piano is ideal for beginners.

As Black, 2 Knights Defense is great to start off. Lousy posted a good list but I'd be careful with Sicilian Alapin variation, because some stronger players can take advantage of you if you don't practice enough.

Wait... two knights defense... these are the craziest openings in crazy opening town.

You can pick a different opening as Black every evening and whenever you play the one you choose will be two knight's defense.

(cue rim shot...

...and slightly delayed groaning and eye rolling)

So hopefully you've come away from this thread with a good idea on what openings beginners should concentrate. To summarize: Any of the ones that begin with e4, d4 or c4, including the Sicilian, Giucco Piano, Ruy Lopez, King's Gambit, the Indian defences, the Colle system, any of the more esoteric ones like the Van't Kruijs, Durkin's Attack and the Kholmov Gambit, and the hyper-moderns Reti, Bird and Nimzowitsch. Any of these are fine. At least they should get you started. Good luck!

[but stay away from Petrov's Defence; strictly for advanced players]

White: Guioco Piano, Scotch Game, Four Knights' Game

Black: Two Knights' Defense, Caro-Kann

Queen Pawn Game: Zukertort Variation is good for a beginner

 Imho you shouldn't really be concerned if an opening has lots of theory, because you will always play opponents at your level. E.g. if you choose to play the Najdorf as black you won't be facing Kasparov with the latest english attack novelties prepared from home. However it is good to know the ideas behind your openings, or at least some of them. 

 As time passes, you will become more and more familiar with your chosen openings and you will consume less time to make good moves, calculate more accurately and develop a good feeling for the positions. Also with time you will slowly learn theory, e.g. after you play a blitz game look up the moves you played against a database/book, also in "online chess" games you are allowed to use databases to pick your lines, I have found the later to be of great help now that I'm trying to slowly get used to a totally different repertoire (both colors) after 15+ yrs of having quit chess.

All that said, imho the best openings for beginners are those with clear cut plans. E.g. in the italian game, most moves are natural. Queen's gambit also has clear cut plans (both colors), King's indian has clear cut plans (even though it is a highly theoretical opening), Sicilian dragon has clear cut plans, closed sicilian has clear cut plans and many more.

On the other hand more complex openings like e.g. the Ruy have been cited by super GMs (e.g. Khalifman) to increase the chess understanding of players but again, imho, a non-professional may face trouble with the amount of positions he has to understand in the Ruy, from grinding the Berlin endgame to defending a Marshall. I used to play the Ruy many years ago but being a school student then I had plenty of time in my hands, now I found it impossible to keep my old repertoire (with Ruy, Open sicilians as white, Najdorf & King's Indian as Black). Always consider how much time you have before choosing a repertoire.  

Finally, once you choose a repertoire don't hop around and try many openings, stick to your repertoire, you will win games, you will lose games with it. Don't blame the opening for your loses, (almost) all openings are good. Analyze all your games see where your play could have improved, identify the new ideas you could have tried and play them in your subsequent games.

I like that repertoire allot!, apart from 5) because playing the same setup, almost independently of what the opponent plays can become boring. 1)-4) is very rich in setups, which means rich in positional/tactical ideas and in all these White has (more or less) a clear cut plan.

As Black learn any two reputable openings and you should be fine

I found this article from the Exeter Chess Club to be a useful guide. It summarizes characteristics of the openings and has recommendations of good openings for juniors (which I read as good openings for anyone who doesn't know much opening theory).

So many opinions.  I would say that you are fine with that you have now, except for prehaps the sicilian.  The sicilian is diffucult because you often have to play right into an attack (you allow white development in exchange for a central pawn), but who konws, it might be good to know in the long term.  I got to disagree with the claim that evans is a positional chess opening, I mean it certaintly can be used as a positional opening, but heck, thousands of games have showed it's potency in the romantic style of chess.

Gambiteering openings IMO are just fine.  There are some that would disagree, a national master level chess coach claims that positional openings help in the long term, but i suggest above all playing what you like and sticking with it.  Vertually any opening will serve you fine, opening theroy makes a fraction of a pawns worth of differance, and openings are vastly overemphasized for losses and wins.  If you are playing an opening that makes chess fun, its a much better idea then playing an opening you aren't comfortable with and learning 1% faster.

 One easy setup is the "kings indian"

With white you do as follow:

1. Nf3

2.d3

3.g3

4.Bg2

5.0-0

and then think about the center, your other pices and where to defend/ put your presshure.

King's Indian Attack is good for white because Black cannot really prevent you from the basic setup.

Most defenses have a lot of theory, so it's just a matter of choosing one that suits your style and learning as much as you an about it. In tournaments, Sicilian has the best overall winning chances with Black, followed by Alekhines (1. e4 Nf6). French and Caro-Kann are also common, respectable tries.

Kings indian setup is powerfull against Caro-kann and French, a easy way for learning the setup is to play many blitz games (5-10 min) and use the setup with both colours, analyze the games without help from Fritz, if you need help look at mr Kasparov's games with the Indian :)

Still, simply picking the right one could be a big help while they improve. If you just told someone to study the queen's gambit until you're "good" at 2000 or something (which I think is absolutely ridiculous, yet there are tons of threads that use that 2000 mark for openings) and they have talent for attacking chess, any of their skill in that area could be significantly decreased because if they can only go by opening principles and might not secure a good enough position for an attack, because that's all they understand. So they should start in the correct opening, which isn't always the often dull italian game depending on the player. The ruy lopez is a long journey but I think it's a good idea for the  beginner to slowly dig into it since not knowing the theory is fine since the black player won't know it anyways. But I don't think at this point openings should be the primary form of study, but it can help.

iv class="fquote"> Norvia wrote:

 Lopez is a must for beginner.

I like to play a stonewall once in awhile just for fun.