Hi!

I just found the forum, hope it is OK to ask a question here?

On homepage, you recommend not to play uncommon openings as beginner. Which opening are you suggesting for me who started play chess 2 month ago?

Thanks!

Hi CaffeinatedBishop,

you are very welcome to ask questions. Just keep in mind that I am a beginner-level player myself and that more experienced players might give you different answers.

In general, most standard openings are sound and none will give you a won game. Therefore, it does not matter that much which particular opening you choose. However, I would recommend to stick with one or two choices as White because in my experience it is too easy to fall for cheap traps in unknown territory, at least for beginners that is.

Aside from that I would now recommend to play something you find good and detailed explanations on. As a starting point I would recommend playing through the games in Irving Chernev's book "Logical Chess", see my review.

If you don't want to buy a book, I would recommend a look at the following websites for good introductions of openings:
1) Chess openings handouts by the Exeter Chess Club
2) chess openings pages for beginners at chess.about.com.

Aside from that make sure to take a look at basic opening principles such as "don't move a piece twice unless you have to" etc. You can find them at the Exeter Chess Club handouts page, too.

I hope that helps a little. If you have more questions, feel free to ask!

My suggestion - which isn't mine at all, I read it somewhere - is to pick one opening for white, and two defenses for black, one for against e4, and one against d4. It doesn't really matter what you choose at this stage, just pick anything and stick with it for at least six months. Don't try to memorize a whole bunch moves, just try to understand why you make any move - I'll get to how to do that, or at least how to try! - through repetition "memorization" will come naturally. At first you may lose a lot of material and games in the opening as people try various "tricks" against you, but soon you'll spot them coming and get into the middlegame on a fairly equal basis.

As for learning "why" to make a move, I recommend Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move. It is a classic, and doesn't have modern openings, but it sure explains the standard openings in extreme detail, as well as complete games. If you find openings you like you may want to get books specializing in them. Just make sure that they are very "talky", not just series of moves followed by "black has equalized" or "white has the advantage", or even just +,- and =.

But before getting specialty books I would get Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings. He covers just about all the popular openings with a good amount of explanation. At the end he presents "Opening Solutions", which are really just his favorite openings, but are definitely very solid.

But remember, whatever openings you choose stick with them for a while until you are comfortable. Good Luck!

Thanks for the nice answers! Guess I will buy the Logical Chess book.