I know the general rule that you teach opening principles to beginners more than specific lines. And so when I started coaching a group of kids who had never played outside of their school group or received any instruction beyond the basic moves, I taught them opening principles. And they did improve; I stopped seeing 1. h4 and 1. Nh3 kinds of nonsense. But even as 300-500 rated players, I’m seeing that opening principles don’t seem to be enough. Sometimes they just miss well known traps, like my student who played Black in his first tournament game and got whomped after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6?? Other times they play passively, like one kid who frequently plays as Black something like 1. e4 d6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 c6. So I’m starting to teach them real openings, and I want to limit their selection to openings that are reasonably simple, sound, and encourage aggressive play (and a small enough number of options to be manageable).
What I’m thinking is giving them the following lines:
As White: King pawn openings only, their choice between main line Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano with 4. c3, Evans Gambit, and either 4. d4 or 4. Ng5 against the Two Knights. Main line responses to most other Black openings, and the Be3-f3-Qd2-O-O-O lines against the Sicilian Dragon and Najdorf.
As Black against e4: Either the Open Ruy Lopez/Two Knights Defense, Sicilian Dragon, Main line French, or Caro-Kann Two Knights line.
As Black against d4: Either the King’s Indian, Queen’s Gambit Declined main line, or Slav (I think the Grunfeld is too memorization-intensive for beginners).
Any other coaches have thoughts on what to teach beginners about openings after covering basic principles, and when to do so?
My friend Noureddine Ziane liked to talk in terms of the plusses and minuses of each move.
His shtick was much better than mine…here’s a watered-down version.
After 1.e4,
1…e5 is the most natural way to develop the kingside pieces & get a piece of the center. But e5 has to be defended (or the center partially conceded), and the dangerous a2-g8 diagonal is open.
1…e6 is more modest (the e5 point doesn’t need to be defended). The d5 square will be another central strongpoint. But Black doesn’t have as much space, and the e6 pawn frustrates the poor bishop on c8.
1…c6 has many of the virtues of e6, and it doesn’t inhibit the Bc8. But it doesn’t develop a piece, and it takes a square away from the Nb8. (1…e6 and 1…e5 PREPARE to develop the Bf8.) Again, Black doesn’t get as much space.
1…c5 is very efficient: use a wing pawn to fight for the center! (Wing pawns are worth less, after d4, …c5xd4 is a small positional victory for Black). But it doesn’t develop a piece.
I do not know much about this sort of thing, but here are some books that seem to be for this kind of problem (approximately in order of increasing level of ambition):
How to Win in the Chess Openings by Horowitz (that looks like the same one you suggested) really opened my eyes to the game when I was in elementary school, but would hesitate to suggest it today because of the notation. It helps to know both AN and DN, but be sure they know AN first.
At some point, the beginner needs to become accustomed to seeing certain moves in the opening, and learning that some other moves just look wrong. I am not talking about memorizing opening theory per se, but simply going over a small number of historic games (e.g. Morphy).
Returning to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6, I would show the student the Nxe5, Qh5+ and Qxe5+ combination. If they never saw that tactic, then they won’t know what hit them.
I also would ask them to consider other moves that defend e5. Hopefully they can find d6, but Qe7 tends to be more popular. At that point, I would mention the rule against developing the Queen too soon. Of course, the best move is Nc6, which defends the pawn while developing a piece (… and fights for the center and knights before bishops). A move that performs two or three tasks is usually better than just one.
At this time, some smarty pants would point out Bd6. I would congratulate the student, and then ask how he plans to develop the light square Bishop. If he or she finds b6 and Bb7, I would again offer encouragement, but I would add that this variation, while seemingly playable, is a bit inferior due to the awkward placement of the Bishop on d6.
Some of the recommendations are just majority but not even exclusive practice among GMs. If a GM is willing to play 1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, d6 sometimes against a GM opponent, is it bad enough to discourage a beginner from playing it? Even making that distinction seems like it could encourage a cookie cutter approach to openings, because we know reasons we can give to endorse 2…Nc6, but we know that they are not very convincing arguments to those who really know! Well maybe I would encourage 2…Nc6, not because it’s supposedly better, but because it produces an open, asymmetrical position that teaches the lessons we think they should learn at that stage.
As for traps, it’s worth teaching them. It’s an aspect of tactical training. But one can get even more out of this situation than just telling the beginner to avoid it. For one thing, White’s attack after 1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, f6 3. Nxe5, fxe5 4. Qh5+ Ke7 is not so easy to play against best play by Black. Sam Sloan used to beat decent players this way, far better players than the beginner would face. Black is a piece up, he’ll probably win if he can get a couple moves to consolidate. So the beginner can learn to calculate and play tough defense. For another thing, Black can recover with a lag in development after 3. Nxe5, Qe7. If the beginner is really good, he can get in the habit of stepping back and calculating when he’s hit by a surprise. Not the sort of position we want our student to play very often, but when it does happen, it’s helpful to be able to fight back in a bad position.
I have less teaching experience than most or all of you, so I suspect my comments may have more apparent than actual utility. But then, how many moves into the opening do we go before we turn them loose to find their way?
When I teach beginners specific openings, I usually have to know what their general style of play is before suggesting anything. Some players like tactics and chaos, others like slower positional play. You can go through the first game or two of Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev to show them that there has to be a good reason for each move that is played. Moves that have two or more positive features, like development, center control, defense of a pawn, or King Safety are ones to look for in the opening.
Openings I would recommend for the beginner for White are the Italian Game and the Scotch Opening. These openings get to the heart of developing the minor pieces and challenging the center. The beginner needs to learn about direct threats and simple tactics first. Pins and forks are typical tactics in these openings, as well as discovered attacks. They can easily discover when to give check and when not to check. They also find that the King in the center is in danger and will value castling. Some players take a while to see the value of the latter. Other King pawn openings should focus on variations with good piece and central play. When they get the hang of tactics, you can introduce them to the pawn structure of each opening.
For those beginners who are a bit more positional, or who do not like 1.e4 openings, I usually teach them the elements of the London System. Each move is explained and what is intended to accomplish. The beginner usually learns this pretty fast. After he/she is comfortable with the play, we move on to other 1.d4 openings.
For Black, I recommend the Two Knights defense and the Caro-Kann. These are simple to explain and conform with the general principles on the center you want them to learn. I think beginners have too great a difficulty in understanding the subtleties of the French Defense pawn structures or the many tactics in the Dragon Sicilian, but these can be introduced over time after they get a feel for piece play. Against 1. d4, the move orders of the Queen’s Gambit and the Slav Defense are easy to explain. The Indian defenses can wait for a while. On the whole, I would rather the beginner play lines with some immediate chance to control the center or have some counterpunch possibility rather than openings where they have to defend doggedly.
Should you spend some time on tricks and traps? Only as necessary so that they do not fall into them. When they fall in love with looking for traps, it holds the beginner back for a while until he gets over playing this type of “hope chess.” I would rather they learn tactics that flow naturally from the position.
I generally do not teach opening “theory” to my students. However, when going over games — either master games or the students’ games – I do mention the names of the openings, and may point out a few traps that they or their opponents might fall into. My daughter likes Petrov’s Defense, so I showed her why 3…Nxe4 is bad. Another student likes the Scotch, so I showed her that Black could fall into the trap
e4 e5
Nf3 Nc6
d4 exd4
Nxd4 Bc5
Be3 Nf3?
But aside from those two traps, I don’t teach specific lines, but go by the principle that one want to advance both center pawns (two squares if possible), develop all four minor pieces, and castle within the first ten moves, all while trying to control the center. In reviewing all games, either a master’s or a student’s, I ask the students how each move is directed to those objectives, or why it does not. ( 4. Ba4 in the Spanish, “Because my Bishop is attacked.”)
Ah, “rules.” One time I was teaching a young girl how to play. Her 6 year old little sister would drop by, watch and listen a little, and then run off to play. She came back with a popsicle and asked if she could play a game. We started out:
1 e4 e5
2 Nf3 d5
The Elephant Gambit. I told her that that might not be the best move. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “But you said the you should move two pawns to center to help get the bishops out.” Yep, she had been listening to every word of the lesson while running around the house. After:
3 exd5 e4
I expected her to take the d-pawn like most kids would do, but she said she did not want me to play Nc3 to attack her Queen. “You would have more pieces developed than me,” the little angel told me. So she could see ahead to my possible moves and not just her own. We continued with what I knew were “book” moves, but were for her instinctive responses:
4 Qe2 Nf6
5 Nc3 Be7
6 Nxe4 Nxd5
“I won a center pawn back,” she said.
7 d3 O-O
“There, I am castled. Is my king safer than yours?” I played the book move “refutation” 8 Qd1 and the game continued from there. I was up a pawn but had to spend precious tempi to get my king safe, too. She resisted fiercely but eventually lost because of missing a later tactic. Or maybe because we ran out of popsicles. The point is that there are a lot of openings with conflicting rules and exceptions. Teaching chess rules is not as easy as it looks.
In 2011, I had taken a group of students from knowing nothing more than the rules to having a basic awareness of opening principles, tactics and piece coordination (thank you, Yury Shulman!) and ratings in the 200s to 500s, and we had three weeks to prepare for the first-ever IESA state tournament (an unrated affair, not the much more competitive ICA K–8 Championship). Based on how the students had performed in previous tournaments, I decided they could use a quick-and-dirty primer on different openings, just so they’d have some idea of what they could find themselves confronted with. For this purpose, I used the “Chess Openings in Practice” section of John Emms’ Discovering Chess Openings. We devoted one day’s practice to king’s pawn openings, one to queen’s pawn openings, and one to “miscellaneous.” It’s fair to say that I didn’t teach any of these openings but simply introduced them; the message was not how to play each one but rather, “So this is a standard opening – here’s why people play it, and now you’ll recognize it when you see it. And here’s another one. And here’s another.” In my judgment, what they needed at that moment was broad preparation; actual opening study could wait.
We finished fourth at state, and one of my players scored an upset win over a player rated 1,000 points higher, so I figure the time couldn’t have been too badly spent.
I take a totally different approach to teaching openings to beginners. I avoid the traditional openings and instead I show them the basic ideas behind the following:
(a) 1. b3 with Bb2 & e3 etc.
(b) 1. g3 with Bg2 & d3 etc.
I try to explain basic ideas. For example, if they play g3 & d3, they need to follow it up at some point with f4, e4, or c4 in order to control the center. Similarly, if they play b3 & e3, they need to follow it up at some point with f4, d4, or c4 in order to control the center.
(c) The London System: 1. d4 with Bf4 & e3 etc.
(d) The Scandinavian: 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 etc.
(e) The Bird: 1. f4 with Nf3, g3, Bg2, 0-0, d3 etc.
If a player shows interest, I will teach more traditional openings such as the Italian Game and related lines. But, in my opinion, traditional openings are difficult for beginners to understand. And it is not uncommon for their intermediate-strength opponents to understand traditional openings better (since they are beginners). Whereas intermediate players generally don’t understand how to play the above openings any better than my beginners and so they are on a more even footing.
A Complete Chess Course - How to Win at Chess - VOLUME I contains the contents of the book, How to Win in the Chess Openings, and also the contents of the book, Modern Ideas in the Chess Openings. I think there is also an explanation of descriptive notation.
Neither book is very modern now, and I, of course, agree that one should be sure to know AN, but I cannot help thinking that, for some, the Horowitz volume might provide a useful beginner’s nodding acquaintance with a bunch of openings and opening ideas.
I bought a copy of Pandolfini’s “Chess Openings: Traps and Zaps”, but I have never used it with my students. I just didn’t find it useful – much memorization for lines that just don’t come up often. I have, however, used “Beginning Chess” and “Endgame Course” so much that they are falling apart!
What a great story! To the extent we are doctrinaire, we are “lying” to the students by spinning narratives that really don’t have a right to exist (except as a crutch for teachers).
Why is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5!? fully playable at the supergrandmaster level? Because it is.
If a beginner learns to fight for the center, develop quickly, eat center pawns whenever possible, and castle quickly, that beginner already knows a lot!
Perhaps because we are threatening to trade an off-center pawn for a center pawn, thus achieving a pawn majority in the center! And castling on the king-side will immediately bring that rook into action against White’s castled position.
I’ve never done it, but I think it would be a great variation to show to a confident-minded student, even one that’s close to beginner. It seems to call on classical ideas of centre control and king safety, but in a tactical and strategical environment so rich and unbalanced that, anyway, I don’t think I understand it.
I think it would teach all the right lessons to help a student’s development, playing on both sides of it! But shouldn’t we teach kids only things they could not use to beat us?
It is hard to beat the Center Game / Danish Gambit for instructional value.
I prefer to ask lots of questions, but let the students figure out the answers.
After
e4 e5
d4
is 2…d6 a good idea? What should white play?
after 2…exd4 I offer three choices:
3.Qxd4 Nc6 Where should the queen retreat?
or
3.Nf3 What if black plays 3…c5 to hold the pawn?
or
3.c3 dxc3
4.Nxc3 What has White gained for the pawn?
Can White play 4.Bc4 and sacrifice another pawn?
After the discussion, pair up the players with the requirement that they play at least one game as white and one game as black choosing from the above variations.
For the next lesson, it is an easy step to the Scotch Game / Scotch Gambit / Goering Gambit
Next comes the Italian / Evans Gambit / Two Knights
That enough to keep most students busy for the first year. Those that are really curious can start learing the Spanish, Petroffs, and then into the Semi-Open Games.
