openings for beginners

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10 Tips to Become a Chess Champ – Scout Life magazine https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/openings-for-beginners-9#comment-56264046

thank you!

Most important is to follow opening principles, develop fast and go from there.

My advice is to pick something more mainstream like if e4-e5 go for Ruy Lopez or Italian game, if Sicilian then go for open Sicilian and go from there. For black pick either e5 or c5 against e4 at the beginning. Against d4 you might play something like Queens gambit declined or Slav at the start. There are certainly other options as well, but in any case pick something sound. Don't play something like 1.f4 as a beginner or some offbeat scarcely played hypermodern line, because some of those might get you checkmated if you don't know what are you doing.  

Here is something that might help you out to learn opening principles:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/surviving-the-opening-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

Your welcome, it looks like the London System as White and Caro-Kann Defence/Slav Defence as Black would suit your play... after looking at a few of your games, so maybe looking up some games in those lines might help advance your understanding of where your pieces and pawns belong.

the London system I apparently do a lot and didn't even realize it. Learning where to go from there and studying each game. Glad to know I'm starting right.

Just to mention this. You may play London System if you wish, but in most cases you will play similar moves as white, whatever your opponent does. That might be a bit problematic if you wish to gain experience in different positions and that should be better in the long run.

If you have all of your white games playing London System, that is 50% of your games making the same moves in the opening. 

how many openings would you reccomend using in games to start? Playing the same game would i wont learn but I don't want too many as to get overwhelmed.

Well that is the thing. You shouldn't learn opening lines in the beginning. You will gradually gain experience because when you analyze your games, you will see if you can do some other move in the opening on say move 6. That way you will build many variations little by little. 

For instance. You want to play d4 but not London setup because London setup aims to have d4,Nf3 Bf4, e3, then maybe c3, Nd2, castling etc... and you will  aim for that almost always, maybe making some other move sometimes, but whatever your opponent does you will play like this.

But let's say you still want to play d4. Your opponent might play d5 and going for either Slav or QGD for instance. At first you will know first 3 or 4 moves and you will be on your own. You will finish the game and you will see with the engine where were your mistakes. For instance, you might see that your move number 5 wasn't so good, so next time you play against QGD you will play a better move number 5. 

Or the opponent might play something else Nf6 and then some Indian defense. Same thing, at first you will know first 3 or 4 moves, but you will learn gradually. When playing white, you will be fighting a couple of different defenses and you should gain experience against all of them. By exposing yourself to all those different responses black can throw at you, you will get better. Of course if you want to put the effort to study beside playing games. If not, well then it doesn't matter that much.


It is normal not to know what to do exactly in the beginning. But by doing that way, you will be exposed to many different things and in a few months you will not be great in those positions but you will be better.

White repertoire is always more extensive than black repertoire in a sense that as you play first, black can do many different things. When you are playing as black, you pick one defense for instance Caro Kann against e4 and you will always play some variation of Caro Kann.  One reason why I picked Sicilian against e4 is because there are many variations of Sicilian out there and there are many different middlegame positions I might be exposed to. Many different things might happen. Sometimes you will lose pretty fast but it is all part of the learning experience.

I would reccomend the Italian game over the ruy Lopez for a beginner.,,,there is a lot less theory to learn.

Many people recommend Italian, that is true, so you are right.

Though many still say that both are perfectly fine as you will play someone similar to your strength, and Ruy is generally a cool opening.

As a beginner, I tried playing English for a month or so, but switched to e4 and Ruy against e5, and I am playing it since. I too was afraid of vast theory but when I decided that 1 000 rating players don't know that much theory to begin with, I wasn't so afraid anymore.

all good advise, thank you everyone!

Chess Openings Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/openings-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

For live chess, only one opening for white and for black one against 1.e4 and one against 2.d4. A beginner just needs to know enough to stay even after about 10 moves. In daily chess, where you can use opening books, articles, and opening databases you could probably do more it's not a necessity. It doesn't matter too much which ones but Use something "mainstream" and "classical"(that attacks the center early) not "hypermodern" (attacks from the edges first). So for white that could be Ruy Lopez, Italian, Vienna game, or Queen's Gambit. For black that could be Ruy Lopez, Petrov's, Phildor, French, Scandinavian, Caro Kahn, Queen's Gambit declined or accepted(just don't try wasting your time keeping the extra pawn if you go accepted), or Slav. I really don't advise using the Sicilian as your first black opening. Not because it is bad, quite the contrary, but because there are A LOT of ways those games can go, I advise trying it in several daily games before attempting it in live.