I've heard that open positions are best to learn first, because you get a sense of moving pieces and closed positions are tricky. I would recommend Italian game.
Recommended Openings for Beginners or Kids?
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english opening or queen gambit declined
london is horrible in my opinion
Oct 17, 2020
0
#25
When I was a youth warden in our club, I had really good experiences with Scottish. At the beginning we always talked through the ten golden opening rules by means of short games or game fragments (1. Occupy the center, 2. Develop the light pieces, 3. Develop knights befor bishops, 4. Avoid many moves with the pawns, 5. No senseless moves with the same developed pieces, 6. Don´t move the queen early, 7. Save the king with castling, 8. Connect the rooks, 9. Move the rooks to open lines or the middle lines, 10. Move the pieces with plan and let them attack .) Then there was a short introduction to the theory of the Scottish Four Knights opening (without Belgrade Gambit) and the Scottish Gambit (not very profound - rather on the level of: pawn sacrifice for faster development and rapid king's attack). Let them try it out afterwards.
I won't recommend Italian since it's quite risky
Oct 19, 2020
0
#27
In my opinion a beginner can play an opening for little longer and they'll understand from the analysis. Just keeping basic chess fundamentals in mind and solving tactics. E4 leads to interesting games so i would prefer going with e4. My personal fav is Italian. :)
There are some reasons why the first masters/authors analyzed Giuoco Piano and Queen's gambit.
These are the most natural openings, respecting general rules in opening/development, and the easiest to understand.
U don't want to learn/teach italian because too tactical? Sorry but chess at beginner's level is tactical and tactics is one of the first skills to learn.
These opening are very educational, because u can show many model games, with instructive mistakes, and instructive ways to benefit from it.
4 knights game (especially with d4, scotch 4 knights as told above) is another good opening, because once again easy to understand and to play.
Those who recommend semi open games, like french, Caro, sicilian, really? It's far more complicated to understand than 1.e4 e5 and 1.d4 d5.
agree
Mark, you have a point there. I assumed that what the other poster meant was the typical tactical puzzle training, which i don't necessarily consider tactical training. Maybe it was a wrong assumption, but you and I both know it's my assumption has some reasons... it's not arbitrary
I genuinely think many well intentioned people have been misguided to think that tactical training is the ONLY worthy thing that makes you progress as a beginner. I just want to state that NO, it's not. Opening "training" is important for beginners because you need to be able to go into a middlegame with a decent chance of at least drawing the game. Then, of course, your tactical training will help you, but so will a lot of things that are the building blocks to solving puzzles. Also, not everybody benefits the same from tactical training. The underlying assumption that asking for opening advice for beginners is a wrong question because tactical training is more important entirely misses the point, IMHO.
I know very well that I am in the minority when it comes to how I view chess for beginners (being a beginner myself), but I want it to be known that NO, tactical training isn't the be and end all of the beginner's way.