Chess Openings for Beginners: How to Start Every Game Well

The five key opening principles

The opening covers roughly the first ten to fifteen moves. Play them without a plan and you quickly end up in a passive position that is hard to escape. Develop well and you get to choose what happens in the middlegame.

The opening is not about attacking straight away. It is about getting your army ready for battle. These principles hold in almost every opening:

• Control the center: pawns on e4 and d4, or e5 and d5 for Black, cover the most important squares.
• Develop your minor pieces: bring out knights and bishops early, usually knights before bishops.
• Move each piece once: avoid moving the same piece twice in the opening without a good reason.
• Castle early: get your king to safety and connect your rooks.
• Don't rush the queen: an early queen gets chased around by enemy pieces and you lose time.

The Italian Game: the classic first choice

The Italian Game arises after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4. White grabs the center, develops the knight while attacking the e5 pawn and aims the bishop at the sensitive f7 square. If Black replies 3...Bc5, it is called the Giuoco Piano, the quiet game.

A typical plan for White is c3 followed by d4 to build a big center, or simply d3 and castling kingside. The Italian is perfect for beginners because every move follows the principles above.

The Ruy Lopez: pressure on the defender

The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Game, begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5. The bishop attacks the knight that defends the e5 pawn. Capturing on c6 and then winning e5 usually does not work yet, but the pressure lasts for many moves.

The most common reply is 3...a6, after which White usually retreats with 4.Ba4. It is one of the oldest and most deeply studied openings in chess. As a beginner, you only need the idea: develop while putting pressure on the piece that guards the center.

Queen's Gambit and London System with 1.d4

If you prefer to open with the queen's pawn, you will often reach the Queen's Gambit: 1.d4 d5 2.c4. White offers the c4 pawn to lure Black away from the center. If Black accepts with 2...dxc4, White can usually win it back. The solid reply 2...e6 is called the Queen's Gambit Declined.

Even easier to remember is the London System, for example 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3, usually followed by Nf3, Bd3 and castling. White builds almost the same setup whatever Black does. That is handy for beginners, because you can focus on middlegame plans instead of memorising lines.

As Black: the Sicilian and the Caro-Kann

Against 1.e4 you can play 1...e5 and meet the Italian or the Ruy Lopez. If you want something different, there are two well known alternatives. The Sicilian Defense, 1...c5, fights for the d4 square from the side and often leads to sharp, unbalanced positions. It is hugely popular but eventually demands a lot of theory.

Calmer is the Caro-Kann Defense: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5. Black prepares the central counter strike with the c pawn and gets a solid position. It is a good choice for beginners who prefer a safe position and are happy to wait for the opponent's mistakes.

How to actually learn an opening

Start by picking just one opening as White and one reply each to 1.e4 and 1.d4 as Black. That is all you need at first. Then play those openings again and again until the first moves come naturally.

More important than the move order is the reason behind it. For each move, ask which principle it serves: does it take the center, develop a piece, secure the king? When your opponent leaves the familiar path early, that understanding helps more than any memorised line.

After a game, look at where you left your opening and what your position looked like then. Were your pieces active and your king safe? If so, the opening did its job, whatever the final result.

Beware: the four move checkmate

Almost every beginner falls for it at least once: 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7 checkmate. Queen and bishop both target f7, which at the start is defended only by the king. It is easy to stop, for example with 3...g6 or 3...Qe7, after which the white queen often stands awkwardly and can be chased with tempo.

Patterns like this are best practised in real games. In Schach der Zauberer you play the computer on three levels and can try out openings at your own pace. A replay after every game shows where things went wrong. And because each side hides a trap on ranks 3 to 6 before the first move, careful development pays off twice here.