is London the best chess opening?

No. It is a terrible opening for beginners and an unambitious opening for strong players.

Nonetheless, I play is some and have two books on it. One of these was written by an IM who I personally like. He thinks it’s a great opening and he’s a lot better than I am.

The last time I played the London in an OTB event, I got a nice position against an expert that I did not know how to play. I eventually had winning chances, but I made the wrong decision positionally and my game fell apart.

Thanks for telling all of us, I appreciate it. London system is bad for beginners I'm must admit agree so maybe play another system because I bet it will be the best opening.

Beginners should play classical open games to develop their tactics and gain a grounding in the elements of positional play. Starting with a complex positional opening like the London will retard their development.

Imitate Greco, and then Morphy.

https://www.chess.com/games/gioachino-greco

https://www.chess.com/games/paul-morphy

Do you recommend any e4 opening in particular for under 800s?

I recommend the openings that Greco wrote about (his games are compositions, created as instruction for beginners). The link to his games is useful. This site only has about 75 or so. You won’t find more than than unless you are willing to do some research, to wit https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/a-greco-game-that-you-have-not-seen

You’ll find that he played the Italian and the King’s Gambit. I play both and recommend these to beginners.

Thanks, I'll have a look I've mostly played d4 the last few months and get better results with black haha.

I think you greatly overestimate the relevance of the opening move(s) over the game.

Most Italian or Spanish games lead to a long grindy positional battle in the master level. Or they can get sharp and complicated suddenly. The same goes for all d4 openings, including the London. It all depends on the players and on the middlegame.

I wouldn't say there's any single "best" opening, if we're talking about chess from a purely objective standpoint.

There are many openings that should lead to a draw, with best play from both sides (nearly all the main openings and defenses should do this), but they're all like different paths up the same mountain - the destination is the same, but the routes are completely different.

So we'd have to define what kind of "best" you're talking about, if we're going to assess the London. Best for learning? Best for giving your opponent the most problems to solve? Best for winning games at certain levels? ... What kind of "best"?

I'd say the London is best for players who want a system-like setup that they can repeat without too much variance ... but that's also perhaps its greatest flaw.

One of the reasons Carlsen is such a powerful player is that his first coach encouraged him to continually try different openings and defenses, so that he continues to learn and doesn't allow himself to stay too comfortable with the same thing. We can debate about whether or not that's a good approach for everyone (I'd say Bruce Lee's philosophy of practicing one kick 10,000 times is also worth considering), but it certainly seemed to have an impact on him ...

i prefer english

No. I recognize that almost every game below master, as well as a substantial percentage of master games, are won and lost by tactics. Beginners should seek lessons in tactics. The London is an effort to avoid what is most necessary.

Again, you grossly overestimate the effect of the opening. There are exactly as many tactics in London games as in any other opening. How and why would there be less?

I play the London. One of my students does as well.

I have a lot of books by Cyrus Lakdawala and consider him a friend, although we only know each other through social media. He advocates the London and I have his book on it.

I still think that it is a poor choice for beginners.

From my little, personal observatory ( I see London System only from Black's point of view ), as far as I'm concerned the games that start with London are all decided by tactics, just like all the others. Anyone who plays at my level is not able to put strategy concepts into practice ( assuming he has any ), and the only thing he does is search and calculate for tactics, and make blunders. With London as well as with Italian, or Scotch, or King’s Gambit.

The difference is that with London the possibility of attacking directly on the King is rarer than with a King's Gambit ( right ? ), so there is less chance of attacking games resulting from it. But as @magipi says, it depends on the player : I never attack the King directly, I wouldn't do it even if I played the King's Gambit, I prefer to put pressure and gain small advantages to reach a winning endgame. I only attack violently when I'm at a disadvantage and have to go all out. So, for me London System or KG are the same.

Perhaps what @Ziryab means is precisely this : maybe he is referring to attacking play, which as I read somewhere is the first thing a player should learn to do. And in this sense, London would not favor the attacking play that according to that line of thought we beginners should prefer. Is that so or did I misunderstand ?

I step aside and continue to follow the debate.

What I mean is what I said. If you try to say that I meant something else, you should restrain yourself.

Open games accelerate understanding of tactics.

I also said that almost all games are decided by tactics. That includes London games, of course. The problem for beginners opting for the London is that their tactical development is not accelerated.

My first deployment of the London was positionally lost for me by move 12. My opponent neither understood his positional advantage (and how to open the game tactically to my detriment), nor perceived the tactical vulnerability he created with the move he played that turned the game around. I won with a kingside assault that I knew how to conduct because I’d played thousands of open games.

Give me a few minutes. I’ll go to my computer and post the game.

At our level of play, your only important task in the opening is to reach a middle-game position in which you feel comfortable and confident. Whatever sequence of opening moves gets you there is the "best" opening for you.

From the classic book, How to Open a Chess Game.

My first foray with the London was the first round of my local club's winter championship. Through the course of that five round event, I had a clearly worse position in four games, winning three and drawing one. The other game was home preparation and I beat the top player in our club in 17 moves. I won the club championship.

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This was round one and I should have lost. My opponent is a month older than me and we first played in a high school match between our schools. That was in the 1970s. He scores about 35% against me, which means that I underperform against him (given that I'm usually 400-500 points higher rated).

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Since crossing 1800 OTB in 2009, I've dropped below 1800 once. It took me three events to get back above 1800 after falling to 1750. This event was the third of those.

A friend gave me a bottle of 18 year that was bottled in 2006 and I had to buy one bottled more recently in order to compare. Both boxes now contain chess sets. Both bottles are near empty. The gift was in April 2023.

I also didn't know how to play the London. I've since learned that if the opponent is going into a KID, the London is a poor choice for White.