Easiest opening to learn for beginners ..

I know a Greek coach who was teaching to play, as white, the King's Indian attack... 

Really brilliant: ten stereotypal moves out of the hat, and then - what?

Needless to say, virtually all of his pupils gave up on chess.

Remember ... just one more time ... 

MY ORIGINAL POINT? 

What is the easiest opening to teach to an absolute beginner ... maybe someone who just learned the moves less than a month before. 

Many of you are talking about people - some have been playing tournament chess for more than a year. By this time (hopefully) they are ready for all kind of new ideas! 

Probably its as important to talk about how I teach ... as to what I teach. 

1. The emphasis is on principles. 
2. There is a long discussion after every single move ... show the beginner what constitutes a good opening and what does not. 
3. Teach the basic formation of the Colle ... WITH THE MIDDLEGAME ATTACKING IDEAS IN MIND. (As much as possible, I try to stress tactical idea.) 
4. Talk briefly about the endgame, many times the Colle ... when properly played ... leads to a highly advantageous K+P ending. 
5. See my original article for more details. 

After 12.Nd5, is the position that hopeless for Black?

I wouldn't be giving up at that point, but may well have missed something.

Inferior, not hopeless.

Right... I read your statement "It's impossible to keep any extra material and whites initiative is unstoppable" and obviously misunderstood.

actually thats not quite right.

The reason people get teachers and coaches is to guide them through a morass of confusion. Each level has its own particular problems and learning issues. The most skilled and most knowledgeable people are not necessarily the best at teaching a subject (remember classes with Grad students as the lecturer(groan)) 

The simple fact is that some coaches teach material for quick results and because its easy.  Usually these are closed systems where players can survive for 10-20 moves with out a major tactical mistake because they are super solid. This stunts growth. Easy to learn and best for development are seperate criteria that do overlap but are seperate.  

I teach for progress. I want players to improve. To do this they have to make mistakes. The point is that some openings hinder development because they lead to blocked positions where pieces are maneuvered around to try and create a pawn break. These are important for masters but totally counterproductive to beginners. Let them play with pieces, Let them learn by losing and winning games in 12 moves. Force them to play open positions where not following basic principles are ruthlessly punished and they cannt hide behind a pawn chain. I show beginners the exchange french and caro with c4 not because I believe in it but because i dont want their opponent to hide. Dont fear losing, embrace it. There is a saying in another game, Go, lose your first 100 games quickly! I think it applies to chess as well.  

Learn the Italian or Scotch as White. e5 and d5 (tarrasch is a great opening) as black or a relatively simple sicilian such as the taimanov or accelerated dragon as black. 

In my humble opinion, a beginner simply needs something to start with. Chances are, the openings they start off with won't be exactly the same ones they end up using for the rest of their chess career, assuming they continue to play. Honestly, anything works, so long as they are taught opening principles, basic middlegame concepts, and endgame fundamentals (not particularly in that order) while not being forced to memorize a series of moves for the sake of following an opening. I have no doubt this can be achieved with the Colle, or with the Italian, or the Scotch. I think part of the learning experience is the novice saying, "What if I tried... ?" and perhaps switching to another opening at one point or another. I don't mean everyone should be switching to a new opening every day of the week, but an eventual change is healthy--simply to taste the other flavors of chess out there. Thus, I believe that in a way, everybody's suggestions have been correct in one way or another.

FLchessplayer: Thanks for sharing your article. It has inspired me to take a look at the Colle system as an alternative to my historic "e4" approach. Thanks!

You are very welcome!

     Great way of answering to nothing.But then again , you have no answer , we both know that.

      But if you find one(it's a longshot , I know, but life is full of surprises) I might considering listening to you or taking you seriously.

Hi NM FL.

How would you compare the Colle to the London, where your personal system of teaching beginners is concerned?

Colle system and London is a nonsense for beginners.It's one of these kind of systems that gives you the falls impression that you understand chess because you can easily play 10(sometimes more) "simple"(simplistic would be more accurate) moves and get a playable position.The problem is that the middlegame positions that are produced do not help yo to understand chess as they are the same again and again.So let's say , 3 years after , you will know excellently Colle or London but  you will be actually at the same level of understanding in a lot of critical points.

     Teaching Colle , London or KIA is the easy way of taking money from the students.You do nothing and you get paid.It's like paying a chef to teach you how to fill the pot with water.

   Pfren is IM and one of the best teachers in Greece and said that he never teaches more than 5 opening moves to beginners.Botvinnik believed that opening is useless for beginners.Capablanca also believed that beginners should learn first endgame and middlegame before anything else.

    But choosing to teach like Pfren is difficult.Needs excellent understanding while teaching Colle is something that anyone can do.

Sorry to say that but it's the truth.

Um, ok?

Still, though.  Curious how NM FL compares them in his personal system of teaching beginners.

Utter rubbish. If you had something valid to say, I might address it. This is  silly ... and not even worth wasting my time on. 

Several IM's and GM's play the London ... that's more than enough of an endorsement. AND ... GM Kovacevic wrote a book on it ... 

At a beginner's level, you just say, "develop here." At the higher level, you must study the different systems and look at top-level games where good players were successful from the White ... AND the Black side. 

Really the only way to learn any opening. 

<Michael G> Stop trolling ... 

First I can see why Mr Goldsby took offense to the post. BUT I have to agree that the London, colle and any other opening like this are bad for beginners. 

I respect the coaches that do teach it (susan polgar recommends the colle zukertort and IM Lakdawala teaches the London as well both people I respect) The arguement for these openings is that it allows beginners to develop naturally and focus on the middlegame with out worrying about the opening..That said I disagree with teaching beginners theses systems and here is why

Improvement at chess is about elimination of mistakes and the punishing mistakes by your opponents.  The biggest mistakes made by 'beginners' are ones of a tactical nature. To improve these mistakes must be eliminated and punished. Playing safe systems results in automatic thinking where players dont really look at what their opponents moves are until they are  done with their their setup. This is not a productive thinking process. Players should be thinking from move 1 about what they are doing and what their opponent is doing in response. I have literally watched scholatic players playing 10 moves against masters and then looking up to "see" what is going on. 
The issue is that losing and winning games in 10 -20 moves is not something to be feared but something to learn from. iWhile they dont drop pieces due to oversights they dont learn to be careful either and look at what is going on. In the colle and london pieces are not developed in a direct and active manner. Tactics are delayed... Mistakes are delayed,... Improvement is delayed..

Locally players who were taught the London quit chess in droves around 1200 and by 1500 they were 'done' with chess for the most part because of the frustrations once players learned to avoid their tricks. One GM coach said that the player needed to learn dynamic play and was stagnated for several years while he learned how to play actively.

yes GMs play these sytems but GMs play many systems inappropriate for amateurs. There are books on the grob so because a book is published doesnt make it valid. 

Is it a bad system no but I think there are long term problems from a didactic point of view. When I did a search of U10 and U8 world championship games I found that the winning players played simple systems with straight forward plans of rapid development and central control. The Italian, scotch, dragon etc... I just used their ideas since my logic is these are players whose livelyhood is based on producing VERY successful players not just amateurs. 

Anyway thats my logic...

is it ok if I drop out of this as a guy who only plays what he plays to get to positions where tactics dominate and I can have fun and maybe get better at calculating.

These particular points, for me, are spot on and get to the essence of the subject Thread.

First of all, thanks for stating things in a nice way. 

Secondly, there are many holes in your argument, and you seem to not entirely understand what I am saying.

I said that the Colle was a good opening for a RAW BEGINNER to learn. I NEVER said he had to play it his whole career!!! 

I have had many students over the years. I have always been a big believer that a student should play openings that are conducive to their natural style of play. 

The DOGMA - for well over a hundred years, especially in the USA, (I can even show you a few old books as proof.) - was that a beginner HAD to play lots of tactical openings (like the King's Gambit) to learn tactics. 

This might have been true back then, but it is an OUTMODED form of thought in today's world. Nowadays, you have dozens of good books on tactics, hundreds of web pages, on-line curriculum, computers, chess engines, DVD's (on tactics); ... ... ... the list is almost endless! So today saying that a player HAS to play tactical openings to learn tactics is simply both not true and a completed outdated, old-fashioned idea ... that has to give way to a new paradigm ... in today's world of technology. 

I have one student in Pensacola, I started him off with the Caro-Kann, as he was relatively poor at tactics, and seemed to have a tendency to always play defensively. Today, after about five years of training, he now likes the Sicilian. I have given him my blessing to play it all the time, if he so wishes; he has even defeated me in a couple of training games. (From BOTH sides of the opening!)  

I love studying openings, and I have played many different openings myself. As a kid, I learned the Stonewall Attack, but I dropped it when I got past about age 10. Later, for about 35 years, I only played 1.e4, (mostly because of Bobby Fischer);  heading mainly towards a Giuoco Piano, (because the is a variation that is named after me). However, after many defeats in this line, (as White) at the hands of mainly FM Stephen Muhammed, I rethought my whole approach to chess. Today, I try to open with 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3, and play a different system every game, never repeating the same line twice. And I also defend with nearly every opening under the sun. 

The bottom line? The openings are merely a TOOL ... a really good teacher will use every tool at his (or her) disposal! But what I said still stands, from a viewpoint of pure simplicity, few openings can rival the Colle, especially when you are teaching a pure beginner.