Openings that teach important concepts to beginners

Its more complicated than that. Often that ends up still being a path mired in memorizing moves and the opening moves getting overdone priority. The priority should still on being familiar with understanding chess.

In this school of thought, games often arent even played for awhile. For example, there is this russian cat whose books are on the USCF recommend. Its a bit extreme IMO, since checkmate is ignored for a long time in order to set the psychology correctly.

All in all though its the same thing, an educational approach vs a win now win quick that people overwhelmingly prefer. A noob had asked me about improvement, and I told him about the educational path and while he found it interesting, he was frustrated I wouldnt mention any openings or moves. Yet my opponent claimed to him I was 100% correct. Still, I think he will be going to the usual websites for win now, win quick.Not a big market for those who choose to learn what strategy,tactics, and position actually are. Just dial me up some tricks and traps.

Italian game or Scotch. Not king's gambit. ofc, if you REALLY like romantic chess, go for it!

Thanks for the help! Another question regarding what Shakaali suggested: I read somewhere that the grunfeld often leads to open positions and is full of tactical oportunities, so can it be used instead of d5 (which, correct me if I'm wrong, usually leads to the standard closed positions) or is it too advanced in your opinion? 

I used to play the nimzo, but felt bogged down by the number of white options, and switched to grunfeld. A certain Bg5 line kept making me have bad results, so I switched to Budapest... and have fun with it

just looked back at Nimzo lines, now I feel it's not that bad. Certainly the computer likes it, eval goes to 0.00

So you were a Grunfeld player, do you think it is possible to play that opening just by learning its main plans and ideas (against 1300-1400 rated players) or is it the type that requires memorizing long lines even when against beginners.

there's a certain memorization involved (i.e. how to even GET to a grunfeld) but my theory was limited to that 😂 . Personally I actually have great results with the grunfeld. If you look at my game history in blitz you'll see that I had some 7-8 win streak before not playing it anymore.

Thanks for answering, a little bit of memorization does not bother me that much. I was just worried that it would have an ocean of theory that would haunt me even before intermediate level if I tried it (cof cof Najdorf cof). 

Well, there isn't such a thing as an opening good for everyone. Take, for example, the Italian Giuoco Pianissimo (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3). The initial moves are easy, but as you set no big problems to the defender, he will likely end the opening without problems. The point in that system is that you enter the middlegame with all the pieces on the board, so it is not easy to play with precision all along, not even after having studied the plans available for both sides.

The other extreme is trying to play active systems in fashion nowadays. That may be an issue for a beginner because active systems often require to properly evaluate concessions, whether of material or positional nature (static weaknesses) to maintain and develop the activity.

Probably the best advice for a beginner is to play in classical style with classical opening systems. Some are not used anymore not because they're wrong but because a prepared master will neutralize them with ease... but you say you won't be playing against masters but beginners. Which systems are those? Those used in the games of Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. Just look up for fully annotated games and see which systems suit you better, paying attention to where each side is trying to post the pieces and pawns, and why.

It's too advanced imo. It's positive that it often leads to relatively open positions  but it fails to meet the second criterion I outlined above of controlling the centre with the pawns. Grunfeld is one of those hypermodern openings where black cedes control of the centre to white early on hoping to undermine it later. Just look at the historical mainline.

White has a menacing and currently unopposed pawn centre. It's true practice has shown that black has more or less sufficient resources here but it's a strategically very complex opening that's best avoided until you have more experience. The main line is also just one of the many options white has. There are many other variations leading to similarily strategically complex positions but that often require quite different treatment from black.

It's true that 1 d4 d5 tends on average lead to more closed positions than 1. e4 e5 but still not usually as closed as many of the KID or French lines for example. One possible opening you could consider should white try the queens gambit with white is the Tarrasch defence. The advantage of the Tarrasch defence is that it offers quite natural development for all the black pieces from early on contrary to many other variations of Queens gambit where it takes more time and perhaps knowledge of the typical plans to achieve.

Personally I love giving my opponents their dreams (Big center) and then slowly crushing their dreams lol! With the grunfeld's big center, black should strike with Bg7, c5, and Nc6! Putting pressure on the d-pawn. Notice how white is unable to take the c-pawn because it drops a rook.

A lot of people think that 4 or 5 ...Bf5 in the Slav is logical but it weakens b7 so it's slightly inferior so early in the game. ....Bg4 is bad when Ne5 can attack it and white always gets an advantage from this. Often white plays Q b3. Often white can open the position with the pawn sacrifice e2-e4 and get a winning position.

Thanks for the help, everyone! And that Tarrasch defense seems really good. It kinda reminds me of a queens gambit structure with opposite colors (except for the absense of the black E pawn and the white C pawn).