What are some good openings do you recommend to play for a 500 rated player like me?

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SamuelAjedrez95
Ethan_Brollier wrote:

@SamuelAjedrez95, note that I'm not trying to give the best variations all the time, I'm trying to give the lines which will teach long-term ideas. Kramnik transfers to Tarrasch, Winawer transfers to Najdorf, Canal transfers to Ruy Lopez, et cetera. This is a "teaching" repertoire more so than a "winning" repertoire, though I tried to pick White's best lines in each of these as well because winning is fun.

It will teach you better to immediately start playing and learning the opening that you want to play in the longrun as you will become accustomed to the ideas of that opening. Choosing one line earlier and another later is just giving yourself more to learn.

The ideas in the Canal Attack are going to be very different from both the Ruy Lopez and the Open Sicilian. In the Canal Attack you will often be playing without the light square bishop whereas in the Ruy Lopez, you preserve it. Also the black pawn will often be on e6 rather than e5. The Canal Attack is a decent opening but it will not teach you the ideas of these other openings.

Canal Attack

Ruy Lopez, Chigorin Defence

NumerousBadgers
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
NumerousBadgers wrote:
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
NumerousBadgers wrote:
Ethan_Brollier wrote:
NumerousBadgers wrote:
SamuelAjedrez95 wrote:

London system is actually very bad for beginner chess development. It's easy but quite dry and unambitious. It can teach bad habits as you are only learning to play on autopilot and not challenge the opponent in the opening.

Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, Italian (particularly some gambit lines) or Scotch are all way better and more fun.

I agree with the fact that it’s dry, but it helps teach good principles, and can be a good base off of which you can learn other openings (for instance, the Trompowsky). I think the Italian Game is pretty good for beginners, and the Queen’s Gambit is also great. I do think the best beginner repertoire would be the Caro Kann, Italian, Pirc, Queen’s Gambit, London, and King’s Indian Attack. The Owen’s Defense, Trompowsky, and a Scandinavian are better for more advanced beginners.

The issue with that repertoire is that aside from the Queen's Gambit, all of those are very complex positional, waiting, defensive openings, and beginners usually are much more suited for attacking, not defending. I'd argue that that's actually a fantastic repertoire for 1100-1400 players, (advanced beginners) and Owens/Trompowsky/Scandi is a better repertoire below 1100 (beginners).

You do make a very excellent point - I teach chess classes, and for the most part, my students love the Owens/Trompowsky/Scandi as their main repertoire, with some other stuff on the side, like the London, KIA, and Queen’s Gambit.

What rating do you teach for?

A pretty wide range. My best students are 13-1400, and my less highly rated ones are 300-900.

Blitz or Rapid? Ahhh, unfortunate. I'm 1600, so I'm pretty far out of that range.

I have one 1600 student.

Ethan_Brollier
SamuelAjedrez95 wrote:
Ethan_Brollier wrote:

@SamuelAjedrez95, note that I'm not trying to give the best variations all the time, I'm trying to give the lines which will teach long-term ideas. Kramnik transfers to Tarrasch, Winawer transfers to Najdorf, Canal transfers to Ruy Lopez, et cetera. This is a "teaching" repertoire more so than a "winning" repertoire, though I tried to pick White's best lines in each of these as well because winning is fun.

It will teach you better to immediately start playing and learning the opening that you want to play in the longrun as you will become accustomed to the ideas of that opening. Choosing one line earlier and another later is just giving yourself more to learn.
++ I disagree. It's much better to be diverse and learn a large set of openings so that you aren't uncomfortable with any structure at lower levels. At higher levels (1800+) it's probably best to stick with one opening, but until then I'd recommend learning a wide range over a narrow specialty.

The ideas in the Canal Attack are going to be very different from both the Ruy Lopez and the Open Sicilian. In the Canal Attack you will often be playing without the light square bishop whereas in the Ruy Lopez, you preserve it. Also the black pawn will often be on e6 rather than e5. The Canal Attack is a decent opening but it will not teach you the ideas of these other openings.
++ This one particular line is the one I'm pushing. The mainline is just a Closed Sicilian with the LSBs traded off, and the Nb7 line plays similarly, as in both the bishop is slightly misplaced on c7, the bishop usually wants to be on a6 after a queenside pawn advance in a Closed Sicilian.

SamuelAjedrez95

Nc6 is not that common. Bd7 and Nd7 are the most popular, not allowing the doubled pawns.

I know some lines look like the Ruy but if you want to learn the Ruy then you should just learn the Ruy. You don't need to learn another opening.

Mazetoskylo
SamuelAjedrez95 wrote:

Nc6 is not that common. Bd7 and Nd7 are the most popular, not allowing the doubled pawns.

I know some lines look like the Ruy but if you want to learn the Ruy then you should just learn the Ruy. You don't need to learn another opening.

You can claim something about "doubled pawns" here only in the line (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Nc6) 4.Bxc6+ bxc6 5.e5!? (else after a Black ...e5 white must already be very careful) which is positionally principled, but time-consuming, and is rather tricky to play, with both colours.