New to Chess

I am trying to move from a 'piece pusher' to a player.

Granted I get smoked at work in less than 10 moves, so I need to work on not making dumb moves.

So what openings should I work on that are developing pieces well, but still strong on being a defensive play ?

Thanks

Any of the named openings pretty much.

Don't learn lines though or you will struggle when people deviate. Learn fundamentals of development, tempo, centre control, king safety etc.

Ok.. so what shoukld focus on first ?

I assume development.

They are all related.

Try some of these?

http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-for-beginners-the-opening2

My advice. Don't rush. Think things through. Learn about various tactics (pins, forks, discovered attack, etc.) I'm not the best at chess, but these have helped me alot and the quality of my play has increased quite a bit.

Here are some quick suggestions:

(1) You should hold off on playing blitz and bullet games for now.  There is really no point to playing those games yet.  Instead focus on standard games in the 15/10 range or longer. 

(2) Read a good book on opening principles, like Chris Ward's Improve Your Opening Play.  You don't want to memorize every line, just try to get the gist of what you are trying to achieve in the opening.  There are a couple of dozen basic rules you need to learn.  For example try not to move the same piece twice in the opening before you've developed the rest of your pieces and don't move the pawns in front of your castled king. 

(3) Get a basic book on tactics and read through the fundamentals of tactics:  pins, skewers, discovered attacks, etc.

(4) Play consistently and review your games or get someone like us to review your games for you after you have tried to review them yourself. 

(5) Continue to use the tactics trainer on this website and others. 

This should keep you busy for a couple of months.  Once you've knocked out those suggestions, come back for more.  There is plenty of more where this came from but we don't want to swamp you with too many ideas. 

Thanks for the information.

I have been playing the 10 minute games and not doing to well.

I do understand that Chess cannot be learned over night, so I am not looking for the fast-track, but rather the knowledge to hold my own.

I just won a game.. yay me.

That's not nice to tell a beginner who likely doesn't know this is a joke.

Just to you know spcalan1, this is the opposite of what you should be doing.  Many beginners and lower players waste time with the opening.  You should focus on fundamentals instead especially tactics and endgames.

So apprently I could have got checkmate in 1 less move... 16 instead of 17.

But I didn't see it in the game.

this is common at most levels of play.  Its actually more rare to not find out later that you could have shaved off a few move.

Much more important:  on move 8 you can take his bishop.  Anything he does with his knight, you can recapure it too, net result: a piece ahead!

Yea I would agree with waffle master. Not that I'm that great, but openings are boring and tedious. I don't know any. But I know the basics. Try and control the center of the board. Don't move your queen early. Don't move the same piece twice early. Try and get a lot of pieces involved.

Also I would look at some classic games. Look at Bobby Fischer's game of the century. It's a really cool game and I found  it to be a great way to get into chess more.

Also you can look at my most recent game. I thought it was pretty cool, and I won.

Defensive play?? The best defensive play is to attack. To attack you need to move your pawns and Rooks and sometimes Queen to 7th or 2nd rank without being captured.

To defence, put 3 or 4 pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and queen around your king.

But I am just being hyperbolic. So I just one word: Attack.

Agreed that attack and defense are the same.  position and tactics are the same as well.  The game is what it is, and while it can be useful to *talk* about an attack or a defense or positions and tactics, in the end you have to do all of it with each move.  A crushing tactic that leaves you in a lost postion is worthless.  A nice pawn structure and position are pointless if you hang a piece.   Most of the so-called defenses are really good at making attacks.  Its all the same.   Specifics are hard to give...  while winning your way to the 7th certainly is a good sign in many games, there are so many other ideas that its not easy to talk about them all.   Only knights care about proximity when defending the king, making defense just as strange in some games.  You can defend the king from across the board in many positions, in other words.

Here is why you don't move your outside pawns to start the game unless you know what you are doing