I've also just read that you should play what you like because even those these two might be the best, it'll be hard to learn playing from positions you don't enjoy.
Why are the Ruy Lopez and Sicilian always recommended?
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Sicilian for beginners? No way.
Ruy Lopez, a bit the same.
These opening are too rich, too complicated, to be played at beginner's level. They need some skills, knowledge, experience.
Beginner should only play what is natural.
For example, queen's gambit declined and italian (Giuoco Piano, Giuoco pianissimo, Evans gambit).
@poucin How about someone who’s about 1700? Do you think they’d help broaden my horizons and are worth studying?
Poucin is only half right!
The Sicilian is way too complicated and theoretical for a beginner.
The Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit Declined are the first two openings that you should study when you reach the stage of being ready to study opening theory. This is usually about 1600 or so. Before that, yoh should focus strictly on opening concepts.
The reason your first two openings studied should be the Ruy Lopez and Queens Gambit Declined is because they are the two openings that follow opening concepts to the letter. If you don't know what I mean when I say "Opening Concepts", then you are by no means ready for opening theory and have no business researching anything with a name tied to it!
"... 'Journey to the Chess Kingdom' ... is primarily intended for children ... Chapter five deals with opening principles, while chapter six provides an overview of the most popular chess openings. Importantly, the emphasis is on giving insights and explaining ideas and principles as opposed to advocating mindless memorization of long lines. ..." - WGM Natalia Pogonina (2014)
https://www.chess.com/blog/Natalia_Pogonina/book-review-quotjourney-to-the-chess-kingdomquot
"Alekhine advised beginners not to play the Spanish game. We also recommend you get some experience first by playing relatively simple openings - the Scotch and Italian games - and only then move on to the Spanish one." - Journey to the Chess Kingdom by Yuri Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin
Around 2010, IM John Watson wrote, "... For players with very limited experience, ... the Sicilian Defence ... normally leaves you with little room to manoeuvre and is best left until your positional skills develop. ... I'm still not excited about my students playing the Sicilian Defence at [the stage where they have a moderate level of experience and some opening competence], because it almost always means playing with less space and development, and in some cases with exotic and not particularly instructive pawn-structures. ... if you're taking the Sicilian up at [say, 1700 Elo and above], you should put in a lot of serious study time, as well as commit to playing it for a few years. ..."
"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Everyone tells you that the Sicilian is too complicated for novices, but they don't tell you why. I suspect that, as a result, many novices decide to play it anyway. I was one of them, many years ago, but now I understand why it's a bad idea.
Action on the wings affects the center, and vice versa. The relationship between the center and the wings is delicate and complex. The complexity, and therefore the positional judgment involved, increases the more dynamic the center is. The dynamics of the center and the relationship to wing play are especially stark in the structures that typically arise in the Sicilian. They are difficult for GMs to handle, so what hope is there for us relatively inexperienced players?
Our best hope is to first play openings leading to central structures that allow us to learn basic positional principles before embarking on the subtleties of dynamic centers.
Sicilian is not recommended for beginners. Not for intermediates. Sicilian is a dynamic counter attacking defense. After playing e5 against e4 and d5 against d4, c5 or Sicilian is my 3rd openings learned and abandoned e5 completely. I won't recommend Ruy Lopez to intermediate black players.
As a longtime chess coach who's taught 3-year-olds, retirement home residents, and everyone in between, my philosophy is that there really isn't a "correct" opening to start with. There are so many different reasons to study openings – to get a competitive edge, to avoid early losses, to get into positions you enjoy, to force certain skills you want to practice, to troll your friends with opening traps...
There are WRONG openings to start with, however! I completely agree with Poucin that the main lines of Sicilian and Ruy Lopez are wrong choices for beginners. Both rely on advanced concepts that just won't make sense at the start of your chess development. Both involve a high degree of "rule-breaking" that undermine the general principles that beginners need to learn. Both require memorization in both breadth and depth in order to avoid early blowouts. And finally, both offer relatively low return for a beginner's effort. (By which I mean: let's say a beginner has White against an similar-strength opponent who doesn't know any theory and just meets e4 with 1. ...e5, 2. ...Nc6, and 3. ...Nf6. If our beginner spent 4 hours studying the Italian Two Knights, chances are that White wins with a crushing attack. If our beginner spent 4 hours studying the Berlin Ruy Lopez, on the other hand, chances are that White... gets a small strategic edge that our beginner has no idea how to exploit. Which result do you think is going to motivate the beginner to study more?)
Since some (e.g. ThrillerFan) do not seem to agree, here are some examples of why both openings are unsuitable for beginners:
- In many lines of the closed Ruy – but by no means all of them – White maneuvers the Queen Knight b1-d2-f1-g3. Want to try explaining to a beginner why they should move the same piece 4 times in the opening, just to get it to g3? Or how to recognize when they shouldn't?
- In the Sicilian, Black often creates a backwards pawn on d6 by playing an early ...e5. Ordinarily, that's a huge positional error. The idea of accepting a static weakness in exchange for dynamic compensation is NOT a beginner concept – it's very advanced!
- In most openings, making 6-7 pawn moves in the first 8 turns is begging to get mated. In the Sicilian Najdorf, it's theory.
- The Marshall Gambit. Enough said there.
– Similarly, the Yugoslav Attack vs the Dragon, or the Keres or London Attacks vs the Najdorf, are just far, far easier for beginners to play as White than as Black. Given that beginners only have so much time to spend on openings, it's not worth it to invest that precious time in a line where you need to memorize long sequences of "only" moves and your opponent just needs to remember "f3, Qd2, Be3, 0-0-0, h4..."
– ECO (Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) has 39 distinct codes covering the Ruy Lopez (C60-C99). There are SEVENTY-NINE codes covering the Sicilian Defense (B20-B99). You could spend hours covering every likely variation of the Closed Ruy Lopez (most of which have lines analyzed well past 20 moves of theory)... only for your completely unschooled opponent to follow 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 with a perfectly natural move like ...d6, Nf6, or ...Bc5. Likewise, you can work your butt off to learn a Sicilian variation, only for your opponent to skip 3. d4. Poof! You're back on equal footing, your preparation completely useless in this totally different position. Sure, all openings have sidelines... but the Ruy and the Sicilian have sidelines that are more natural (for beginners) than their main lines. You can't skip the main lines or else you'll get schooled by booked-up opponents (and in that case, why did you learn this opening?), but you're also going to see long stretches when you never get to play the opening you practiced.
If you're learning your first opening(s), you want to aim for ones where you can learn a few variations that cover most of the games you play. That could be an opening that lets you do more or less the same plan over an over (e.g. the Colle), or an opening that is sharp but also limits your opponent's options (e.g. the Italian Game), or even an ostensibly broad and theoretical opening where beginners just don't ever play most of the complicated lines (e.g. the Queen's Gambit – there are tons of responses to 1. d4 d5 2. c4, but until you're playing opponents over 1500 you can pretty much count on seeing only ...e6 or ...dxc4.)
That said, I do think that beginners can do ok picking up the Ruy Lopez by avoiding all the main lines and playing the Exchange Variation. That's not everyone's cup of tea – it tends to lead to early endgames that many beginners find boring and hard to play – but I might see myself recommending it to a student if either a) I want to force them to work on their endgames, or b) they're starting as an adult (or a child with an "old soul"), and they actually enjoy forcing a slower game. I would still only teach it after that student had learned some basic endgame techniques.
The Four Knights is also an opening that would be easier for beginning players to start out with, the concepts are basic, it is fairly safe for White early on, and there are some traps that inexperienced Black players can fall into.
I'm going to be controversial here.
I played the "Sicilian" from the age of 8 (although at first I did play the ...e6-Sicilian with the rather naive but surprisingly effective idea of ...Bd6, ...Nc6, ...Bb8, ...Qc7 and mate on h2 when they castled kingside and moved the f3-Knight; hence the quotation marks), when my opponent and I were still blundering clean pieces left, right and centre. I also played some form of the KID from the age of 9 because Fischer and Kasparov played it, which is definitely not recommended for beginners. These openings got me from about 800 FIDE when I was 8 to around 1400 when I was 10, before a slight drop as I began to play more experienced players outside of the junior tournaments. Perhaps my game suffered in the long run as a result of my atypical early openings, I don't know, but the games I got were certainly far more enjoyable, in my opinion, than they would have been had I played the recommended lines, and I learnt a far broader array of plans and position types than I would have done had I stuck entirely to classical positions (which I did get a bit of as White, playing the Queen's Gambit and then the Ruy). I'm sure I didn't know all there is to know about the Scheveningen Sicilian (which is what I ended up playing, because Ulf Andersson played it against Ljubojevic at Wijk an Zee in 1976, which resulted in a really brilliant game, even if Ulf lost). But over time I began to grasp the basic concepts of the line, and it served me very well until I decided I wanted something a bit more active at around the 1700-level.
Essentially my opinion is that you should play what you enjoy playing, or look at a game which inspires you and choose the opening you see played there. What opening you choose isn't going to decide the game. You're mostly going to meet Anti-Sicilians at your level anyway if you do play the Sicilian (the Grand Prix Attack was far more common than the Open Sicilian in my early days), which result in a good variety of position types without being too complicated to understand or double-edged. What opening you choose may however decide whether you take chess a bit more seriously or not. I don't think I'd have ever come close to reaching 2000 had I played the Four Knights as a beginner, and I might well have given up playing chess completely (as some of my friends did). It's just so uninspiring compared to the rich and varied positions you reach playing lines such as the Sicilian and the KID.
I've never seen the Sicilian recommended to a beginner, just saying.
IMO the ruy is fine for a beginner. 1.e4 e5 (and 1.d4 d5) openings follow classical ideas, so it's not so bad, and they get to see a wider variety of middlegames than the Italian.
Is the Italian fine? Sure. Should you start with that and then later go for the Ruy? Maybe so.
Firethorn15 wrote:
I'm going to be controversial here.
I played the "Sicilian" from the age of 8 (although at first I did play the ...e6-Sicilian with the rather naive but surprisingly effective idea of ...Bd6, ...Nc6, ...Bb8, ...Qc7 and mate on h2 when they castled kingside and moved the f3-Knight; hence the quotation marks), when my opponent and I were still blundering clean pieces left, right and centre. I also played some form of the KID from the age of 9 because Fischer and Kasparov played it, which is definitely not recommended for beginners. These openings got me from about 800 FIDE when I was 8 to around 1400 when I was 10, before a slight drop as I began to play more experienced players outside of the junior tournaments. Perhaps my game suffered in the long run as a result of my atypical early openings, I don't know, but the games I got were certainly far more enjoyable, in my opinion, than they would have been had I played the recommended lines, and I learnt a far broader array of plans and position types than I would have done had I stuck entirely to classical positions (which I did get a bit of as White, playing the Queen's Gambit and then the Ruy). I'm sure I didn't know all there is to know about the Scheveningen Sicilian (which is what I ended up playing, because Ulf Andersson played it against Ljubojevic at Wijk an Zee in 1976, which resulted in a really brilliant game, even if Ulf lost). But over time I began to grasp the basic concepts of the line, and it served me very well until I decided I wanted something a bit more active at around the 1700-level.
Essentially my opinion is that you should play what you enjoy playing, or look at a game which inspires you and choose the opening you see played there. What opening you choose isn't going to decide the game. You're mostly going to meet Anti-Sicilians at your level anyway if you do play the Sicilian (the Grand Prix Attack was far more common than the Open Sicilian in my early days), which result in a good variety of position types without being too complicated to understand or double-edged. What opening you choose may however decide whether you take chess a bit more seriously or not. I don't think I'd have ever come close to reaching 2000 had I played the Four Knights as a beginner, and I might well have given up playing chess completely (as some of my friends did). It's just so uninspiring compared to the rich and varied positions you reach playing lines such as the Sicilian and the KID.
Yeah, I mean, if we were trying to be Russian school boys and girls, then we'd start by training in the endgame 8 hours a day.
Since we just play for fun, practically no one is going to go the route recommended by top trainers. We're just going to play what's fun.
I think looking at GM games and picking something that inspires you is great. And then if your middlegames aren't fun (or if your results aren't good) then you can switch as needed. Just be sure to look at a few GM games every day to keep getting exposed to new ideas and new openings.
"... Apart from openings and middlegames, the student is commonly advised to study the endgame, sometimes with an admonition to stay away from serious opening preparation untl an unspecified 'later'. When I was beginning to play chess four decades ago, this advice was ubiquitous, accompanied by the 'fact' that all the Soviet children learned endings in depth before they were allowed to play any games.That turned out to be an utter myth, but there's no doubt that learning a limited set of basic endings is absolutely essential for your development as a player. ..." - IM John Watson (2010)
OldPatzerMike wrote:
Everyone tells you that the Sicilian is too complicated for novices, but they don't tell you why. I suspect that, as a result, many novices decide to play it anyway. I was one of them, many years ago, but now I understand why it's a bad idea.
Action on the wings affects the center, and vice versa. The relationship between the center and the wings is delicate and complex. The complexity, and therefore the positional judgment involved, increases the more dynamic the center is. The dynamics of the center and the relationship to wing play are especially stark in the structures that typically arise in the Sicilian. They are difficult for GMs to handle, so what hope is there for us relatively inexperienced players?
Our best hope is to first play openings leading to central structures that allow us to learn basic positional principles before embarking on the subtleties of dynamic centers.
In addition to your highly valid points: in the Sicilian Black, who's already half a tempo behind, follows a risky strategy based on a high number of pawn moves early on (compare the number of pawn moves by White and Black inside the first ten moves). Basically, Black is to an extent neglecting his/her development to gain space or build a hedgehog structure.
iiivyzhang: As a beginner, there's really no point in learning much theory (and the Sicilian requires a lot of it). It's much better to concentrate on following general opening principles and just 'play'. Therefore play 1.e4 e5 and 1.d4 d5, and when you get to face mor unusual openings, just play it by ear. Get a collection of well-annotated master games (such as Chernev's 'The Most Instructive Games Ever Played' and 'Logical Chess Move by Move'), and play through the games in them. Initially, this is definitely one of the best options, because you'll learn about all aspects of the game that way, and in a manner which makes much more sense to you.
I think beginners (below 1200) should play only one opening: Italian. it is the only opening that follows opening principles and gives a chance to practice most of the basic tactical motifs.
Sicilian, Spanish, QGD ...etc are all theory heavy with many deviations possible. And these openings do not give any advantage to beginner even if he learns the theory, even against players that don't know anything.
As black, beginners can try philidor defense. it is solid and avoids s lot of theory. But, I personally, think it is too passive. I liked giuoco piano better as black.
Beginners are advised to play 4 knights game. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6. Black should avoid the passive Philidor defense. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6.
"I think beginners (below 1200) should play only one opening: Italian. it is …" - Ashvapathi (~43 minutes ago)
"Beginners are advised to play 4 knights game. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6. ..." - bong711 (~23 minutes ago)
FlyingSandal wrote (~52 minutes ago):
... I very much agree to avoid the Sicilian as a beginner, but you need to know something about it only because you will see it from your opponents.
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Play_e5 wrote:
bong711 escribió:
Beginners are advised to play 4 knights game. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6. Black should avoid the passive Philidor defense. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6.
This is not how you play the Philidor.
That is the philidor defense though.
I always read and see people suggest the Ruy and Sicilian to beginners to stick with but I'm not sure why. I'm looking to improve and if they really are the most beneficial to my learning, I'm willing to learn and play them to get better. Thanks!