A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance.<p>After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as black the French defense (for e4) and the KID (for d4). This is mostly coming from the POV of getting good at the game with a minimum of theory preparation, whilst being able to deploy the same openings in blitz and bullet games if need be.<p>Another bonus of getting strong at tactics, is that you&#x27;ll be able to see and appreciate ideas behind the openings and your game analysis will also improve. There are excellent GM analysis videos on Youtube that one can start extracting value from too.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chesstactics.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chesstactics.org</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chesstempo.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chesstempo.com&#x2F;</a>

My advice to beginners is to not stick with one opening, but to play them all. Include wild openings like the Kings Gambit and Danish Gambit, as well as strategic openings like the Queen&#x27;s Gambit. You will be out of &#x27;the book&#x27; very quickly, and that&#x27;s actually good. You&#x27;ll be learning to play, rather than recall.<p>Another piece of advice: Study endgames before openings. Learn about K + P vs K, the elementary mates, (K + 2B vs K, and K + N + B vs K). Then keep going. I have had to &#x27;finish off&#x27; opponents in tournament conditions with these combinations of pieces.<p>Lastly: Best chess book ever: <i>Winning Chess</i> by Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev. Of the dozens of chess books I&#x27;ve owned, this one is head and shoulders above the rest. All about middle game tactics, and mating patterns.

After a lifetime of chess, I&#x27;ve more recently become a fan of Fischer random chess (aka Chess960)[1], where the back rows of pieces are shuffled before the game begins.<p>It puts puts people on a more equal footing in terms of their actual chess <i>playing</i> skills instead of their opening memorization abilities.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fischer_random_chess" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fischer_random_chess</a>

While I agree with others here in that studying tactics and endgames is a better use of your time if you want to step up your game, you can still improve your opening without actively studying it. I remember when I was starting out I used to watch a lot of Jonathan Schrantz videos out of sheer interest and I ended up picking up quite a lot of ideas and principles all the while having fun. So definitely check out some [1] of his Saint Louis Chess Club lectures! He also has his own YouTube (as well as Twitch) channel [2] where he mostly goofs around and beats not only strong players but also chess engines with incredibly dubious openings.<p>On a different note, in case anyone finds it helpful, here&#x27;s a CLI tool [3] I wrote last week which you can use to build opening repertoires. The intended use case is to 1) download the games of a chess player from a website like openingtree.com, 2) run the tool on the fetched PGN file to generate an opening repertoire, and 3) import the output into a study tool like lichess or chessable.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dxUuueHFfFs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dxUuueHFfFs</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;JonathanSchrantz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;JonathanSchrantz</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zcesur&#x2F;opening-repertoire" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zcesur&#x2F;opening-repertoire</a>

I&#x27;ll call out for beginners at chess, there is no need to learn openings in order to improve at low level. Focus on just playing games and tactics (chesscom paid or lichess free). These things will get you to a level where you can start to parse the difference between openings.

&quot;White can start by moving his King&#x27;s pawn 2 spaces, i.e. playing &quot;e4&quot;. This move has many strengths - it immediately works on controlling the center, and it frees two pieces (the Queen and a Bishop). This is a popular first move, leaving Black with two options&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t remember much from my chess obsessed youth, but going e4 and moving the bishop&#x2F;queen into position for a 4 move checkmate will always remain. When I subbed middle school years ago it was my go to whenever playing students. Oh man the reactions I&#x27;d get when it worked, lol.<p>I&#x27;ve been meaning to get back into chess more seriously, this looks like a helpful guide.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;3He5V" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;3He5V</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20200916032946&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwheeler.com&#x2F;chess-openings&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20200916032946&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dwheeler....</a>

I will never forgive Netflix for letting the Scholar&#x27;s Mate out of the bag. You should learn that from a parent, aunt, or uncle. It is an initiation.

I find it amazing that a game that&#x27;s so old doesn&#x27;t have a dominating opening. I see no reason for that to be the case. Maybe it&#x27;s just a matter of us not having the computational power to find such an opening and analyze it&#x27;s continuations to completion. I know that there&#x27;s a huge number of reachable chess states, but it still seems like there could be an opening that always wins.

I&#x27;m gonna go against what others are saying here... learn openings if you&#x27;re a low rated player. They not only give you tactics against players who don&#x27;t prepare against them, but you also never have to feel lost in the first 12 or so moves. You can just study 1 or 2 lines for a start, it&#x27;s really not hard especially with computers.

If you&#x27;re looking for an opening book, I recommend FCO Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren for any beginners&#x2F;under 2000.<p>FCO is well written with many diagrams (sorry I hate reading move lists), and captures the amateur&#x2F;pro metas as openings came and went out of favor through the years.<p>Also, all the cool kids play 960 now: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fischer_random_chess" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fischer_random_chess</a>

When I was starting to learn chess I liked the London System. It was easy to memorize and helped me get a footing in how to think about chess.

Has anyone dabbled in Fischer’s chess 960? The idea was to semi-randomize the starting position each game to prevent players needing to memorize a huge body of openers. Kasparov’s response iirc was “...let’s not pretend that research is not an important part of the game”

I&#x27;m finding openings matter less and less. If I&#x27;m white, I&#x27;m going E4 but otherwise I&#x27;m reacting to my opponent&#x27;s move until I can gain the initiative.

just to remember: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lichess.org&#x2F;team&#x2F;hacker-news" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lichess.org&#x2F;team&#x2F;hacker-news</a>

Out of curiosity, what would be the final rating of the the Beth Harmon character from Queen&#x27;s Gambit ?