What openings did you start your chess career with?


I started my chess career with 1e4 for White and 1.e5 for Black. I did not know the names of openings at that time and just played to control the center as best I could

Started with Scotch Gambit as white, paired with QGA and Petroff as Black. And, I bought about 100 opening books along the way. Ha!
Then I realized much too much "opening work" was involved. Why bother? So I switched to Modern Defense with Black, and Reversed Slav with white. Now I have lots of time to study the other two phases of the Royal Game. Simple.
Watching Hikaru play Game in 3/0 is also worth the effort. Some amazing ideas are displayed (rather quickly) in his games.
If you want to play "real chess," for 10 hours per day / 4 days straight, then enter the New York Open, when the virus dies down.

how many rounds a day is that? (3?)
in our local club tourneys it is usually 3 games on a saturday
i can only handle 2 and by the third i am fried
but if i could commit to the entire timeframe i might be able to adapt properly (have yet to play tournament games on consecutive days- stamina sure to be tested)
i am sure it would help my game tremendously thougj
when is the ny open?

My first REAL opening was Italian game. I was playing it for really long but now im playing (learning) Grand Prix Attack. Before i learned Italian game i was just radomly opening and hoping for the best

Dragon and Benoni as black, d4 c4 as white. I had great success with the Dragon, and was terrible at Benoni. My first rating was 1445.

Dragon and Benoni as black, d4 c4 as white. I had great success with the Dragon, and was terrible at Benoni. My first rating was 1445.
You started chess with... Sicilian dragon?
That's too complex for "first" openings.
Oh and i also skipped Benoni when heard Dragon, Benoni is really hard as well!
Seems like you only right choice was queen's gambit lol

Leningrad Dutch and English. Before the quarantine, I used these two against everything. Funnily enough, I won more than I lost. When I signed up for Chess.com I got around to learning KID, Dragon, and London.

I started with the Italian for both sides and played d5 against d4. I didn't change my openings for years.
At some point I switched to the Ruy Lopez as White and the Sicilian as Black. I also experimented with the King's Indian, English Defense, the French, the Dutch and the Nimzo.
I now stick to the King's Indian Attack, King's Indian Defense and Sicilian Kan.

Dragon and Benoni as black, d4 c4 as white. I had great success with the Dragon, and was terrible at Benoni. My first rating was 1445.
You started chess with... Sicilian dragon?
That's too complex for "first" openings.
Oh and i also skipped Benoni when heard Dragon, Benoni is really hard as well!
Seems like you only right choice was queen's gambit lol
I chose all my first openings by seeing games of them in Chess Life magazine. I just thought they looked cool or had cool names. I didn’t really know about which openings were too complicated for my level. I was playing mostly C and B players and they didn’t know theory any better than I did. The Dragon was the only one I had good results with. I really struggled with Benoni until a master told me not to play it. I was really bad with d4 too, lol.
Back then most of us played what Fischer played as black & white. For me I realized I didnt want to memorize as much as needed to play the Najdorf. I played KID vs d4 and against e4 either a classical Sicilian or Marshall vs Ruy Lopez. As white I tried everything until a friend & very good player Philip Lamb pointed out I did well with e4 but stunk playing everything else. I think I learned a lot playing KID positions.