recommendations for starting out

Hello everyone!

I am in the stages of building an opening repertoire, but I am having difficulty deciding which ones to start with. Since there is a lot of study involved in understanding an opening, I would like to start in the right direction.

What I am looking for are:
-2 openings against 1.e4
-2 openings against 1.d4
-a good opening when playing as White

I don't know if I have a "style" yet, but I don't mind complexity. As I am still a beginner, my calculation isn't strong yet. I have tried the Pirc Defense, but found it too constricting early on.

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks.

Well there are many openings, it depends a lot on style. If you are really starting out it may not even be that important what opening to play. My advice would be to just study a lot of tactics and a little bit of endgame. The opening isn't important at all when you just start. People who you play against probably do not know the opening that well, so after 3 moves they make a move that isn't theory. This will give you a very small positional advantage that will probably not help you much at all. Your game will be decided by a tactical shot not a tiny positional advantage.

But alright if you insist:

1. e4:

1... c5 sicilian defense. The sicilian defense has many variations and is a very sound defense. Many variations give black plenty of room to attack and give both players good chances. There is a lot of theory on the sicilian defense.
For instance:

You can also answer 1.e4 just with e5.  White has many options what do fromhere on. But so he has on about every opening there is.

1. d4:

You can play many things against this. For instance you can play the semi slav which is a strong opening.

You can also play the king indian defense.

When starting as white:

Well there are many many things to do. You can start with e4 if you like playing ruy lopez or sicilians.

As a beginner, stick to open games (1. e4 e5) as both white and black. Here's some quotes from a similar thread on another forum explaining why:

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"A beginner should avoid the Queen's Gambit and the French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game." GM Richard Reti (!), "Masters of the Chessboard" (Bell,1933)

"Players of the 4th and 5th categories are recommended to play as far as possible OPEN GAMES (except for the Ruy Lopez). It is useful to employ gambits. (...) Here it is very useful to analyse for example, games of Anderssen, Morphy and Tchigorin.
GM Alexey Suetin, "Modern Chess Opening Theory", (Pergamon,1965).

"There are two ways of solving this problem. One is to select some half-open system and study its hidden possibilities thoroughly enough to remove any fear of surprises that your opponent might have prepared against you. Granted a certain rationale in this method, which does enable a player to achieve perfectly adequate competitive results, a more purposeful approach (from the point of view of improving your play most rapidly) is to opt for 1...e5! In this case it often happens that from the very first moves the game enters the realm of tactical complications, the analysis of which will quickly contribute to raising your class of play. Admittedly this entals much more work."
Vladimir Zak, "Improve our Chess Results", (Batsford 1985). (Zak was an important coach in Leningrad for many years; he was first coach to Spassky, Korchnoi and others. For a dissenting voice, not to say a hatchet-job on Zak, see Yermolinsky's "The Road to Chess Improvement".)

"It is always best, when learning anything, first to try to do the simplest things well and then to learn the more difficult, and this is particularly true here. The objects and methods in closed positions are far more subtle and hidden than those in open positions, and very considerable knowledge and experience, as well as ability, are necessary to play the close game even reasonably well. In the open game, however, both the object - direct attack on some point in the enemy game, often the king's position - and the method - rapid and effective development - are very much simpler and can be understood and reasonably attempted by comparatively weak players. And it is only by starting with the open game that a chess player will learn how to make combinations, an obvious essential to anyone who wishes to play well. Position play will come later and is in any case useless without combinative ability, since it is only by a combination that positional advantage can normally be turned to account."
IM Hugh Alexander, "Chess", Pitman 1968. (In the period 1935-1955, Alexander was England's strongest player, who took many international scalps, including Botvinnik and Bronstein. His chess career is said to have been constrained by the fact that he was an important figure in British Intelligence.)

"All chess openings starting with 1 d4 are called 'closed' or 'semi-closed'. To play them well and efficiently, one must have a certain understanding of position and some experience. Therefore I advise you to play, at least for a year, 'open' games, and only after this can you start playing 'closed' games."
Garry Kasparov, "Kasparov Teaches Chess", Batsford 1986.

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Thanks for the great responses. I think I was too caught up in the "theory" way of looking at it.

KMB,

Check out the Download, Chess Systems, in the "Other" section of the download area. (Look for the Yin/Yang symbol)

In this, is two Chess systems. One is called the Tiger and Dragon. This system appears constricitve at first, but is actually quite aggressive when it gets going. The object of the system isn't just to try and win the "center" of the board, but to totally dominate the whole board from the beginning of the game to the end.

If this isn't your cup of tea, Try the second system, called the Bear. This system seeks to apply superior chess logic to the game. I.e., most aggressive/tactical openings lack positional strength, and most positional openings lack aggression. The Bear seeks to be both aggressive and positionally sound, as well as giving your opponent a psychosis by avoiding all of his main line preparations.

Complete repertoires for White and Black are given.

Check out "Chess Systems, The Whole Enchalada", posted earlier by me in this forum for more info...