"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Need some advice
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Youtube has a good selection of free lessons and will get you started.
@kindaspongey Thank you I will look into that.
@krudsparov Can you tell me more precisely what lessons you would recommand?
Open e4 with white then you can use the closed sicilian which is a good choice, you only need that one opening against any sicilian that black uses and maybe the ruy lopez if black replies e5. You can get away with just those 2 openings with white a lot of the time, you haven't got time to learn many openings in 2 weeks.
You may find some inspiration in the following....
A concise summary of all the major openings....
http://www.chesskids.org.uk/grownups/openings.pdf
Online overviews of many openings...
http://www.thechesswebsite.com/chess-openings/
Some opening repertoire suggestions by GM Nigel Davies and IM Andrew Martin:
Martin's repertoire...(click the icons with downward pointing arrows to download the pgn files)...
http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/repert.htm
Davies' repertoire...
http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/repert2.htm
The following articles relate to choosing an opening repertoire...
http://www.mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa02i07.htm
http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-1.html
http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-2.html
http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2007/03/openings-for-improving-players-part-3.html
The following books are excellent, and provide coverage of most if not all of the major openings in a relatively concise format...
Back to Basics: Openings by Carsten Hansen. A survey of all the major openings, including exposition of their themes, plans and strategy.
Understanding the Chess Openings by Sam Collins. A guide to all the major openings with relatively succinct explanations of their essence, themes and plans.
FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren. Probably the most comprehensive treatment of all the major openings in a single volume.
I recommend checking out Chessable.com, an excellent online resource for chess learning - in paticular openings. John Bartholomew is one of the founders, and is an excellent presenter and teacher. Also the Scandinavian Defense against 1. e4 is a solid and relatively "easy" defense to learn fairly quickly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBq1gsiLRgY
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+bartholomew+chess+fundamentals
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=climbing+the+rating+ladder
You might also check out the comments on two books by John Emms "Discovering Chess Openings" and "First Steps: 1 e4 e5", as well as "My First Chess Opening Repertoire for White" by Vincent Moret, here....
Good Chess Openings Books for Beginners and Beyond....
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-openings-books-for-beginners-and-beyond
and...
Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond
May 2, 2018
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#7
If you are playing daily games here you are allowed to use the opening book here. Simple.
RussBell wrote:
... "First Steps: 1 e4 e5", ...
If, for whatever reason, Fabian0Marijuana does not want to spend all available opening study time on Discovering Chess Openings, the 1 e4 e5 book would be my second choice as most likely to be helpful in the next 2 weeks. One can see a sample here:
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf
RussBell wrote:
... "My First Chess Opening Repertoire for White" by Vincent Moret, ...
My not-very-authoritative impression of the Moret books is positive, but I am skeptical about the practicality of learning much from them in less than two weeks. Anyway, here are samples and a review:
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9033.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9050.pdf
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/vincent-moret/
Fabian0Marijuana wrote:
... Do you know of any resource that could teach me the most basic lines of the most common openings in 2 weeks?
I can understand a desire to learn about the most common openings, but I have to warn you that such a project makes for a massive amount of dreary reading - not practical for a less-than-two-week activity. If you really want to give it a try, you might consider the opening discussion in The Mammoth Book of Chess. There are a lot of sample games (the sort of thing that is, in my opinion, the most helpful for starting to learn about an opening).
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093123/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review756.pdf
Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings does not contain a lot of sample games, but he did introduce a lot of openings in a way that is probably more readable than most books of this sort.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
RussBell wrote:
... Back to Basics: Openings by Carsten Hansen ...
Ideally, if one wants to be able to tell whether or not a book helps one to learn about openings, one should look at an online sample. Sadly, in this case, I do not know of any place to find such a thing, but I at least know of a review:
http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2010/1/30/a-brief-review-of-carsten-hansens-back-to-basics-openings.html
Based on some browsing, I would note:
1. The book has less detail than some other books of this sort. I think that is a good thing. For many readers, lots of detail is not all that helpful and makes it harder to quickly get an idea about whether or not one would want to use the opening.
2. Hansen included a separate chapter on Opening Principles, while some other authors have just incorporated any discussion of principles into the commentary on individual openings.
3. In addition to presenting bunches of variations, Hansen took the time to make comments like this: "For years the Four Knights game had a reputation of being exceedingly dull ... But in the 1980s the opening had a revival, ... Since then the opening's popularity has declined again, though it still appears even at grandmaster level. ..."
4. Hansen tried to include various sorts of advice such as:
"Don't spend more time on the opening than you do on the middlegame and endgame."
"... For new players, I cannot recommend books that use [an encyclopedic] type of presentation [of opening theory], because the explanatory prose that elaborates typical plans and ideas is usually absent, thus leaving the student without any clear idea why certain moves are played or even preferred over other apparently equivalent moves. ..."
"... For inexperienced players, I think the model that bases opening discussions on more or less complete games that are fully annotated, though with a main focus on the opening and early middlegame, is the ideal. ..."
There are a whole chapter on how to "decide which openings to choose" and another with advice on how to continue one's opening studies.
RussBell wrote:
... Understanding the Chess Openings by Sam Collins ...
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627031504/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen76.pdf
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Understanding_the_Chess_Openings.pdf
RussBell wrote:
... FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren ...
https://web.archive.org/web/20140626173432/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen128.pdf
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/FCO_Fundamental_Chess_Openings.pdf
Greetings people, I have registered for a tournament recently on a whim despite having never played in a club and I have basically no opening knowledge at all. Do you know of any resource that could teach me the most basic lines of the most common openings in 2 weeks?