Beginners SHOULD learn openings
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Tactic books and puzzles obviously make sense for beginners…. But if you want to learn how to play chess, I have zero problem with some of learning coming from ‘learning’ an opening. You’ll have to look into which move is next and why, that can’t be a bad thing in terms of learning. And yes, of course end game practice too. There’s a ton to learn, I don’t see anything wrong w an opening book or two to help guide the learning.
Another dumb topic resurrected by Ethan_Brollier for no reason.
"Beginners SHOULD learn openings" ++ To stay beginners forever.
If they want to progress, then they should learn endgames.
magipi wrote:
Another dumb topic resurrected by Ethan_Brollier for no reason.
I love these kinds of topics though, and I want to hear people's thoughts about them.
Learning a few opening moves is not the same as studying openings thoroughly. Obviously everyone needs to learn a few opening lines to get familiar with the game, but beginners get nothing from studying openings seriously and deeply, they would just see a bunch of variations without understanding anything.
The thing of learning a few movements of each opening, that is what they should do; theoretical lines up to 7 or 12 moves, it would be easy and can help, but before going deeper than that you have to learn other things, concepts, tactics and endings. In the meantime trying to figure out what comes after the few moves you know will help you know what you will need to learn about openings for when you study them in the future.
i know about 110 variation from all of the opening i know yet only about 6-12 variation of its really applicable and i focused on it
I think Smith Morra Gambit is fine for beginners. It teaches them rapid development https://youtu.be/lF1AclkCrk4?si=9_ADi9fVkujh0Wiu
For me, visualizing openings in tree form was a game changer. It made memorizing easier and helped me quickly spot patterns. I actually liked it so much that I started making my own visual posters (mychessposters.com), and it has improved my repertoire significantly. Highly recommend trying a visual approach!
Apr 19, 2025
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#110
Beginners/low rated players will benefit from learning an opening and defense(s) 4 to 5 moves deep. There's no need to learn more until one gets crushed; at that point, one can look up the proper move for future reference. Improvising an opening/defense is just an invitation to unnecessary frustration.
There seems to be a common thread of advice throughout the chess world that beginners shouldn't learn openings until 1500 or so, and spend more time on analytical ability. I think this is terrible advice and I want to address it so some of the higher level players stop giving this advice and beginners aren't left defenseless.
Beginners don't have a great deal of analytical ability. This makes them very susceptible to opening traps. The opening requires some of the most analytical ability because the usually taught tactics aren't really there, there are virtually no puzzles that help one think about good moves in this situation, and there are way more combinations of subtle moves that might have to be considered. (That's why opening theory exists in the first place) People with weak analytical ability shouldn't be forced to wing it on the most analytical part of the game. In my opinion this is not well remedied by studying opening principles, as one size fit all rules are difficult to flexibly use and still result in losing good position in the first 10 moves against traps. Without analytical ability to use said principles they're useless. On the flip side, the beginner who does learn opening traps and plays against others who don't will get a free pass on a bunch of games.
TL,DR beginners should learn the first five moves of a bunch of openings, and ignore all the higher rating players who tell them to avoid openings.
I have a very similar thought process, except instead of the first five moves of a bunch of openings, I advise players to play exclusively hypermoderns and moderns (flank/transitionals) as black and to play aggressive traditionals in addition to the moderns and hypermoderns as white. All you have to do is to avoid the hypertraditionals as either color (Indian, Spanish, Sicilian, Queen's Gambit, and French), but make sure you know a simple line or two for each of them (Trompowsky/Torre for Indian, Bird's/Jaenisch for Spanish, Smith-Morra/Delayed Alapin for Sicilian, QGA/Albin for Queen's Gambit, Pray/Resign for the French (realistically the Steiner, KIA, and Chigorin variations work pretty well to take Frenchmen out of their opening prep and if you're crazy enough to take them on, the Mainline Alekhine-Chatard Albin-Chatard Gambit)) in case you find yourself in a game in one of these.