Chess openings for beginners/ kids

QGD

I prefer long term success over short term gains.

Firstly explain the three rules of opening; control the centre, activate your pieces and castle. Beyond that openings I recommend for kids are based on being fun, surprising your opponents and leading to tactical games (which kids usually like).

As white play e4 hope they play e5 then play the Danish Gambit. It is fun and not overly theoretical.

If you are black and your opponent plays e4 then play d5 then after exd5 play Nf6 - the Icelandic Gambit

What youre describing is the Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation. If white plays 3.c4 then you can have an Icelandic Gambit.

Exactly, BettorOffSingle!

You have to forgive WIM P-Fran.

WIM P-Fran is suffering from a medical condition!

As they say....Water seeks its own level.

This is a chess forum.

I don't need an ally?

Betteroffsingle stated a phrase which I believe is true and I agree with it 100%.

It doesn't mean I am his ally.

It doesn't mean I agree with all the other crap he said in his life!

It simply means the statement he said on this forum in that text was the statement I agreed with!

Jengaias, I believe there is something wrong with you!

You are so worried about allies and appearances you miss the point!

You would rather side with an ally, who is wrong, than to listen to the agrument being made.

It is obvious talking to you is like talking to a box of rocks.

I will not waste any more effort in talking to you.

You simply feel like talking about nonsense.

I have already told the OP of this thread my opinion.

It is on him to decided.

please stop

talking like this

thank you

There must be a small measure of agreement in the manner which you choose to misspell argument.

I love how all chess.com forum topics eventually and without hesitation turn into personal attacks no matter what the topic. 

Giucco Piano is the ideal opening for beginners. Basic opening principles like controlling the center, piece development, etc are all shown. And that opening is sound even at GM level.

ezamit wrote:

My son is rated around 750 and I have taught him Vienna opening for white. After reviewing few of his games, I feel it might not be a good opening for beginners. Any recommendations for a good fundamentally sound opening for white.

I do agree the Italian game (also known as the Giucco Piano) is an excellent choice for beginners. The complement to it is the Two Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5!). Those openings are sharp and forcing. They teach beginners to look for tactics from the very beginning. 

But there are many good openings for beginners that are similarly forcing. GM Larry Evans recommended the Spanish, which is also excellent. There's nothing wrong with the Vienna or with the Scotch, either. Many beginners also learn the Danish as their first opening. That's another excellent opening for beginners even though with best play Black can get a fine game. 

The problem with teaching openings to beginners is that too often, beginners treat chess as just an exercise in rote memorization. That kills creativity, creates a lack of understanding how to solve chess problems, and most importantly, often kills the fun of the game!

Dvoretsky's books aren't meant for beginners. They aren't even meant for experts. They're meant for players who aspire to break 2300, at a minimum. I agree in general with the idea of coaches spending most of their time teaching endgames, but there's a better model. 

Garry Kasparov recommended a method of improvement that works for all levels

• Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Be specific! Don't just say you're weak in the endgames, identify which weakness is causing you to lose games the most. Is it pawn endings? Rook endings?
• Pick your biggest weakness and improve that area
• Play!
• After a week or two of targetted study, repeat.

If it turns out that you are constantly getting crushed in the opening, spend a week on openings. But again, be specific. Is it all openings, is it the first few moves as White, as Black? What is it about your openings that you consider to be the greatest weakness. 

As Kasparov himself says, sometimes it's good to have a coach to help you to identify these weaknesses and to come up with a plan of improvement. 

Perhaps the scotch?

Does somebody out there understand that sentence about "purely qualitative" differences?

Good idea! Maybe I will post on it

Here you go! Hopefully this helps your kid https://www.chess.com/blog/GMSeaslessspark/opening-study-for-beginners Click here

right, bad bishop, but you can always play me for more theoretical lines, under unusual ideas

Not me. 

I certainly disagree with Pfren's assertion. Tal and Botvinnik had vastly different styles and approaches to the game. They often came to the same conclusions about positions, but in markedly different ways. Tal himself commented on this difference in style in several places. He would calculate concrete variations in tremendous depth and Botvinnik would respond almost instantly due to his more holistic strategic thinking. But then Botvinnik would get into time trouble because he spent longer calculating the short forcing variations. 

The first GM who supposedly had a universal style was Spassky. It was said he could play any position well. Spassky demonstrated that universality by playing chaotic chess against Fischer (a known weakness in Fischer's game, as seen by Geller's plus score against him), but then switching to strategic IQP positions against Petrosian. Amazingly, it was precisely in that sort of strategic position that Petrosian faltered in the World Championship. In the 1970s, Keres wrote an article about a game that Petrosian won by playing in the style of Tal, and everyone knew what Keres meant! 

Karpov was the first world champion to argue that style was actually a weakness. Kasparov built on that by pointing out that a player's strengths point to their weaknesses too. He discussed at length Beliavsky's strengths to demonstrate they were also his weaknesses. He strove to improve his own weakness and become more universal in his matches with Karpov. 

Today, every elite GM excels at concrete analysis. They do have differences, which mostly show up in their choice of openings. I don't think Karjakin's first win ever against Anand was a fluke. He chose an amorphous opening and aimed for a position where Anand had hanging pawns. The position was objectively almost equal, but Anand was clearly uncomfortable in that position. 

Most elite players try to remove style from their game, and to become universal players. But none succeed completely. There are games that are quintessential Carlsen wins and games that bear the hallmarks of a Nakamura or Anand or Kramnik win too. Style still exists.

One thing that every world champion has in common is they are fantastic endgame players. But as Mihail Marin pointed out, even in that area, different world champions excelled in different aspects of that highly technical aspect of chess. Carlsen's games are special cases of this. He can beat even top-ten opponents from equal positions in the endgame!

Style still exists, despite the best efforts of the best players to become more universal.