What Are The Most Important 4 Openings to Learn?

  if u r rated under 1800 then u should be concentrating on tactical puzzles and endgame, and not 4 openings that u will play.  Reason is simple: if yr opponent makes out of book move u just might not be able to follow correctly.  Tha is if u want to improve yr chess strength of course.  It is quite easy to memorize countless openings just by playing, thats what unrated chess are for.  u will get more milage from just learning 1. e4, since Bobby Fischer  pretty much played it all the time.  When u get to 1800 it will make sense to study openings as well.

Actually, I cannot agree with you; if you play 1.e4 as white and you always expect the Ruy Lopez, you will get lost in the woods as soon as someone plays sicilian, caro-kann, french, scandinavian, alekhine, pirc, modern, which are not bad openings, just different from 1..e5. You do not need to study them as deeply, but you should have an idea on what to play. Same thing with 1.d4, 1.c4, everything.

haha - i've been on hiatus.  notice that those games are in the last day!

Well it's not necessarily for him, I think he just wants to know what 4 openings will help you the most in understanding chess. I don't think he needs to know all of them right now, but it's an interesting question for any level of play.

Whatever they are they are not as important to "learn"

As four endgame positions

King and pawn vs king

The Philidor position

Lucenas Bridge

The principle of two weaknesses.

The t

sorry for the maybe stupid question but what is the "t"?

Emanuel Lasker wrote a book called "Comon Sense in Chess" that was baesd on a series of lectures he gave in London in 1895. His advice for opening preparation is to concentrate on developing knights, bishops and central pawns in the first six moves, and that no more than two of the first six moves should be pawn moves. Although you may have to learn "traps and tricks" through trial and error, this may be a good place to start. This aproach would include several diferent openings. 

Also, the Soviet chess training establishment believed that no one could become a grandmaster without mastering the Ruy Lopez. They must have beleved that this opening required the mastery of the tactical and positional concepts required to make a player formidable. 

I've been thinking that I might prefer to substitute the Nimzo-Indian for the Queen's Gambit. I think you can make a case for including either one, but not both, since they're pretty similar and actually can transpose.

how about you substitute both for 1.d4?

I wouldn't call 1.d4 an opening. Otherwise the answer would devolve into "learn 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3 and you'll be good.

Surely you need to play black sometimes ?

As white, there is nothing to prevent you from using the same opening move every single game, but as black you need to be prepared to meet 1. e4 and 1. d4 at least.

against e4 the perhaps petroff french defence/caro-kann defence sicilian, and e4 e5 nf3 nc6(I dont know what its called)

against d4 then nimzo/QID,KID grunfeld QGD/QGA and slav are pretty standard

Yes, I agree that knowing all those would be good, but you've got to pick 4, as the OP requested.

You all know my opinion on picking one: if you pick a single opening to become a master at it should be the Ruy Lopez.

That being said, I am not by any means a Ruy master. It never occurs in my games. I mean never. (At least I sometimes reach a Sicilian via the move order listed below.) I should take my own advice and make it a point to study the games of Karpov and Keres, and all the other GMs who have developed the Ruy into what it is today.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nf3 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.e4 d6 etc.

I am not sure what the objective is, to improve your game or to limit the amount of opening study ? If the latter, learn the English as white, the French and QGD as black and that is probably enough. But personally I would find this routine tedious.

as i have been reading more about the Ruy Lopez, based on the comments here and some internet searches, it seems like this has to be, hard and fast, one of the openings to know as much as possible about, both because it is used so often, but also because it helps teach the principal tactics that are so important.

also, just to clairify, i don't mean that one should only memorize 4 openings and then only play those.  it's more of a two sided question: as a practiced expert player, what are the 4 openings you feel are most important to you and then also: as a beginner what are the 4 openings do you feel a student ought to be exposed to and work with.

thanks everyone for all the feed back!

Well actually alot of the lines of the Ruy Lopez arent so tactical and are more postional. I will just stick with the Queen's Gambit for now since I have been doing pretty well with it. The grunfeld not so much.

exactly, every person has differnet chess style when you find out what is your style you can choose to play some opening like sicilian dragon if you are player that likes tactics

 I used to play the English in order to reduce the volume of opening theory I had to learn, but after a while I found it tedious. I also felt that I wasn't developing my tactical abilities to the level I wanted. I still haven't, but I think they're improving more rapidly with 1. e4.

You don't need to learn anny openings, just play good moves - one by one...

you better study all..even the uncommon openings..cus  I think thats a one giant step for being great chess player