Beginners SHOULD learn openings

Anyone who says Beginners shouldn't learn openings obviously wants to minimise their competition. Openings are a critical part in my chess journey since I was a 850 rated player.

there is an implication here to learn opening traps. these are very specific, and while fun (especially if you catch one with them), they don't have value in the long term.

better to teach them what makes good opening play, and a simplified thinking process to minimize blunders. general principles should be taught with accompanying sample games and always with the caveat that tactics overrules everything.

also suggesting to learn the first five moves of a bunch of openings is rather vague and misleading. why stop at five? what bunch? you seem to be advocating learning openings yet your advice does not help your cause.

of offense, but it sounds like you want beginners to analyze their game and to find the mistakes they made when they have no idea of tactics, game plan, strategy, and positional advantage. This properly is not the curve which beginner learn to play chess. No one says learn a opening, has to deep dive into all of the theory, learn the first few moves is enough for beginners, learn the first 15 to 20 moves is good enough for intermediate players. 

You have to familiarize yourself with a certain position and keep trying different moves and only then you can build your experience of playing that position. Imagine playing different things every game. What can you learn from those games? You won't reach the same position again how come you manage to know you won't make the same mistake again? Isnt that also the reason why people always said stick with one opening until you fully understand it.

Seeing "oh no, I hung my queen" does not require an advanced understanding of the game to notice. "Don't hang things" is a viable plan that will move you through the beginner ratings quite effectively. Knowing the first few moves you want to do yourself isn't a terrible idea for white, though I wouldn't get too hard into responding to everything as black. (I have a reply for e4, still not entirely sure what to do vs d4 yet, still working that out, though I've looked into things. I've made it to 1600s on that. I try to repeat myself in games.) A couple of moves replies for maybe 3 openings, if that, is enough. Your goal is the opening is just to get your pieces out, and frankly even if you make the wrong 2-3 moves, you'll usually be fine. Short of straight up going bongcloud tier, your opening choices aren't generally going to make a big difference. You'd have to flat out disregard opening principles entirely and even then if you don't blunder pieces you have very viable winning chances. 

Yes, play into the same positions. You could probably count playing lots of games trying the same idea as your opening study without looking at anything beyond "this is what the Italian is." Just going "develop kingside so you castle on move 4" will get you there for a default plan. 

A few problems with beginners learning openings

1) Since they have little positional understanding, they may just end up memorizing moves instead of learning the ideas behind them.  Openings can become a crutch for them, especially if they neglect other parts of the game.

2) A lot of other players won't follow theory and then your just left on your own anyway.

3) Falling into these traps can improve your tactical vision.  Mistakes are part of the process.

4)Players may accidently equate their success playing the same opening trap over and over with their actual skill level.

Play what you want, but I know a few players that haven't had an original thought in a long time and are clueless if taken out of book.

While I'd argue that learning some openings (apart from the basic principles) is good and almost healthy at the beginner level (let's say around 900-1000 elo), I wouldn't try to go and learn as many as possible. I once read in a Chess.com article (don't remember who wrote it) that a beginner should learn an opening they want to play as white, a response to 1.e4 as black, a response to 1.d4 as black and a response to the rest of openings as black. This is what I did, to some extent, and it gets you into the middlegame really well (even in some matches I played against a 2200 rated NM, the match wasn't decided on the opening, but rather in the middlegame). You shouldn't need anything else at this ELO openings-wise, imo, and then you can spend the time on what will win most of your games: the middlegame and endgame.

 I think going for a default game plan is what exactly openings does.

 I don't understand why people assume that beginners tend to memorize move order only while they don't understand the game. It's ridiculous In my opinion. It's like memorize the whole process of solving a calculus question when you don't even understand the meaning of the mathematics symbols. 

I start playing chess 3 months ago and only did that once when I am at 1000 elo (chess.com) and I gave up in 1 hour.

All in all I literally just don't understand why learning opening will eventually drive beginners into only memorizing moves necessarily. 

The second thing you mentioned is very true. That's also why learn a few openings won't let beginners freak out when playing against other stuff, cuz there are always players playing nonsense opening moves against them. They will build their experience in those games.

Also, nothing wrong with learning from mistakes, even you didn't mess up in the first 5 moves, you will still mess up in the next 5 moves if you're not good enough, thus you still gonna learn something.

The last thing you said is very critical, it really depends on how the player treats chess game. But it's actually no way to stop them from prep a trappy line if they want to. Even you tell them no to do it.

Theory builds on itself.  It can be difficult to understand a seemingly innocent pawn move until you realize it is designed to prevent an entirely different subvariation.  You may not realize why that variation is typically avoided until you learn how the other player has a well known sacrifice a few moves down the road.  You may not understand why that sacrifice is so good until (and it goes on and on).    Since you can't reasonably learn all of this in an afternoon, some people memorize moves and don't understand the position.

Many beginner players also seem to want to memorize theory in the sicilian, semi slav, KID, etc.  Once you go down some of those sicilian paths, if you don't know theory you prob won't make it out alive and you won't realize why you've lost either, so they usually memorize even more theory.  If you wanted to memorize more classical openings, then you could easily find these moves over the board by learning ideas and playing on opening principals.  Using ideas, you will still know what to do when your opponent deviates instead of trying to play the same series of moves against everything.

Edit: I'm not against trappy lines.  There are plenty of decent players who love to play gambits etc.  But I've had people resign in the first few moves after I didn't fall into some pretty well known traps.  In that case, I'd assume they were looking for a quick win and didn't know what to do when I didn't fall for a trick. 

Agree with @primaldual. If I went on the forums at 1200 rating and was told not to study openings, I would have avoided the entire section on how to handle middlegames, thematic tactics, common strategies, piece placement, and I suspect I would be around 1700 strength at most.

What!? it's too crazy. I doubt those beginners are not human beings on this planet. The reason you think why people will just memorize moves is very reasonable tho. 

Imagine memorizing Sicilian theory when your opponent doesn’t even know it lmao

True, after knowing 30 moves of the Dragon vs Yugoslav and find that no one even plays it.

Not gonna lie my theory ends two moves after the initial setup of the dragon

I have to admit I am still a beginner and only learned three openings lol. but when I just got chess.com I just did it to beat my dad and friends, since their great at chess but look at me, couple weeks in and I am still trash, but I did improve.

oh and plz don't make fun of me

Honestly I somehow managed to be 800 uscf by knowing nothing except basic opening principles and the two overkill mates