Improvement

8 Chess Openings You Must Learn if You Care About Improving

Introduction

Chess openings are tough. Really tough. I remember when I first started with chess, and I was just playing nonsense at the beginning of the game because I’d been procrastinating studying opening moves. I was only able to get so far doing that, because chess is a game of rhyme and reason. Playing aimlessly at any point in the game is sure to lead to unwarranted losses.

But what I’m NOT about to do is give you a bunch of senseless, chaotic opening theory, riddled with endless variations for you to memorize, not even understanding the meaning of the moves. I’m going to give you thematic openings; openings centered around ideas and patterns, not ones that have a super specific move order and variations with strange names.

It may sound daunting if you’re new and just getting into chess, or it may be intimidating because you are into chess and you don’t want to disturb an already cemented opening repertoire. But I can promise you, *learning a new opening is almost certainly the best thing you can do for your chess career right now.* Many people find themselves stuck in a plateau where they aren’t really getting better or worse. If that sounds like you; start playing these openings, now. Diversifying your repertoire is keeps your chess brain alive and well.

With that being said, I’m going to give you what I believe are the best 4 openings for white, and best 4 openings for black.

Openings for White

#1: The Scotch Game

This is an opening that if you aren’t already playing, you urgently need to. It begins after the standard 1.e4 1.e5 2.Nf3 2.Nf6, and then the immediate center break, 3.d4. If you give it only a couple minutes of study, you see that black’s only real move in this position is to take your pawn on d4. If they don’t, there are various ways to punish them, many of which involve playing the move d5.

Pros:

• Opens the center, granting huge tactical opportunities.
• Super simple, fun, and easy to play.
• One of the least common e4 openings, so you’re opponent may be thrown off.
• BONUS: Scotch Gambit!!!! Very powerful tool to go along with the Scotch.

Cons:

• If the person with black knows what they’re doing, they may be able to equalize.
• Simple to the extent that black doesn’t really need to know that much theory, either.

#2: The London System

Before you go and post me on r/chess, just hear me out. This opening gets a lot of hate, and for absolutely no good reason at all. This is actually the first real opening that I ever learned, and it led to countless wins for me. The best thing about the London is that in almost every case, you’re going to put your pieces on the same squares every time.

This is what the ideal London System setup would look like:

Pros:

• Easy-to-remember, natural setup (as seen in the image above).
• Can be played against virtually anything black does.
• Countless plans and ideas; very high ceiling.
• Potential for big attacks on the queenside, kingside, or down the center.

Cons:

• Super well known, so black may know how to respond well.
• This isn’t a con, as much as it is a warning to NOT BLINDLY PLAY THE SAME SETUP EVERY TIME!!! You HAVE to actually put thought into your moves; just because it’s a nice fun easy setup doesn’t mean you can just spam it with your eyes closed, you’ll lose SO many games doing that. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience.

#3 The Trompowsky Attack

This opening begins after 1.d4 1.Nf6, and 2.Bg5. The end setup will be pretty similar to the London System with the pawns on c3 and d3 and knight on d2, but often involves other dynamic plans of attack such as pushing your pawn to e4.

Pros:

• Incredibly easy to learn.
• Black has basically no challenging responses.
• Lots of tactical opportunities.
• Very speedy development.

Cons:

• Black may not have challenging responses, but if they know what they’re doing, they should be able to equalize fairly easily.
• Black can kinda just take no risk and play super solidly, and it may be up to you to figure out how to exploit their very stable setup.

#4: The Nimzowitch-Larsen Attack

Okay, I get if you’re a little frazzled at this point, because the names are starting to get a little bit crazy! But rest assured, the name is the most complicated thing about this opening.

The Nimzo-Larsen is a pretty straightforward opening. Generally, your plan here is to put your pawns on e3 and then on d4 and c4, expanding in the center. You also want to develop your light-squared bishop to b5 (where it will be very annoying for your opponent to deal with), and to get your knights out. A good Nimzo-Larsen position looks like this:

Pros:

• Fairly easy to pick up.
• Extremely uncommon, especially at lower and intermediate ratings.
• Potential for big expansion in the center and on the queenside.

Cons:

• Super passive, and if you’re a weaker player, you may find yourself overwhelmed if black takes the center.
• Can get somewhat complex when it comes to certain positional ideas.

Openings for Black

Now many people, especially beginners, have a lot of enthusiasm for learning openings for white. A lot of you beginners out there love to just wing it with the black pieces. Yeah, I see you. Learning openings for black is just as important as learning them for white; half your games are gonna be played from the black side. With that being said, here are 4 more openings for when you’re playing as black.

#1: The Scandinavian Defense

Yep, that’s all it is. After 1.e4 by white, you play the simple 1.d5, and you’ve entered the Scandinavian defense. After 2.exd4, the most common move is to take the pawn on d5 back with the queen. Now, I know they always tell you not to get your queen out too early, but the Scandinavian is kinda the exception. It’s been well proven that there are multiple safe places for the queen to go after 3.Nf3 by white.

The plans in the Scandi are pretty simple, so a satisfactory Scandinavian position after some moves might look something like this:

Pros:

• Super simple and can be picked up in less than a day by players of any strength
• Offers the possibility of the Icelandic Gambit, which can happen if you play 2. Nf6 instead of recapturing the pawn. That can lead to some crazy dynamic stuff.
• Natural development scheme

Cons:

• The queen. If you’re a low rated player, I’m sure you’re no stranger to blundering the queen, and playing an opening like this makes that much more likely if you aren’t careful. But just keep your eye out for her, and you should be fine.
• Time. White is able to win a good amount of time by attacking, or threatening attacks on your queen, and you do need to know how to deal with that if you’re gonna play this opening.

#2: The Caro-Kann Defense

This opening right here is quite possibly my favorite opening to play, white or black. It combines positional and tactical play in a way that almost no other opening can. But the Caro-Kann is kind of like a Ferrari. It’s a very powerful and quality thing, but you definitely need to know how to operate it. This is the opening that probably contains the most theory on this list. But luckily there’s a way to get away from all that nonsense, and it involves sacrificing that pawn on c6.

So what happened here, is, white played e5. Then we played c5, sacrificing the pawn. White played Nf3, because trying to hold onto the pawn with a move like b4 is just a waste of time. Then we recaptured the pawn on c5 with our bishop, and developed our pieces. Now we’ve got great pressure on the white center, and very cohesive development.

Pros:

• You will melt through opponents who don’t know what they’re doing. This opening is one of the best ways to fight for a better position with black early in the game.
• Most of the variations involve very similar themes.
• SOOOOOO much pressure on the white center. Even at the 2000+ rating range, some players still crack.

Cons:

• Theory. Suck it up. Sit down and study for a while, you’re reading this article because you want to improve. Chess isn’t a get rich quick scheme.
• No other real cons, other than the fact that you’ll have to apply yourself.

#3: The Nimzo-Indian Defense

This is probably the best opening for black, from an objective standpoint. At the elite levels of chess, players tend to not even allow black to play this opening. The plans are pretty simple; you want to capture the knight on c3 at some point, hopefully doubling white’s pawns. You want to play d5 (sometimes d6) and c5, to expand on the queenside. You want to get your queen and knight out, and then chill with a very pleasant position. Here’s an ideal scenario for black.

Obviously this position looks complicated with all that tension in the center, but unless you’re rated around 1700 or higher, you don’t really need to know much theory. Just tread carefully, and don’t blunder any pawns.

Pros:

• You get to double white’s pawns. This is by far the biggest benefit of this opening, as oftentimes, you can target those pawns and eventually win one or both of them.
• Quick and easy development.
• Very strong presence in the center; lots of openings with black are pretty passive, this one is quite certainly the opposite.

Cons:

• This is a pretty common opening, so white will know how to reply pretty often above the rating of around 1300.
• The light-squared bishop. Unless it gets developed to b7, which is a whole different setup, it can often be forgotten about, sitting sadly behind that wall of light-squared pawns.

#4: The King’s Indian Defense

The King’s Indian is another one of those openings that does contain endless theory, but not theory you necessarily have to be aware of unless you’re a higher rated player. The most common plan is to develop your other knight to d7 and eventually push for f5, and a huge attack on the kingside.

Pros:

• Incredibly dynamic, tactical opportunities know no bounds in this opening.
• You will cut through people like a hot knife through butter if you can successfully execute that kingside attack I mentioned.
• A lot of players will simply allow you to attack their kingside.

Cons:

• If white knows the theory and you don’t know the theory? You’re finished. So be careful if you’re playing this opening above around 1500.
• Possibly passive at times, if white gets the whole center with their pawns and you are unable to expand on the kingside.

Well there you have it! Those are the 8 openings, 4 for white and 4 for black, that you should investigate if you want to start winning more games and improving that rating.

Once again, I understand the feeling of being scared by trying out new openings. And y’know what? You probably will lose a couple games when you’re first starting out. But that shouldn’t stop you; this is a long-term investment. As GM Maurice Ashley loves to say, just bite the bullet!

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