Willempie wrote on 07/21/06 at 08:18:20:



"Those pawngrabber lines" give Black a great chance to play in gambit fashion, which is excellent for beginners, I opine.   I take your point about the QGA, but I teach young players to try to hold the center and take it over if possible.  I think it takes some sophistication to "give up" the center, then fight back.  Chacun a son gout, I suppose.

For anybody starting off with chess I would recommend the QGD as a defence. Why? Well firstly it is solid - Black establishes himself in the centre, next it is GOOD FOR YOUR CHESS - you will get to play and learn lots of different pawn structures - Carlsbad structure, hanging pawns, IQP positions, all types of chess positions are here. Play some games and when you lose then look and think and learn the typical plans and ideas in the structure - soon you will start learning. I know it is much more fashionable to play Gruenfelds and KID´s and Benko´s, benoni´s but I would highly recommend if you starting out in chess to start with the classics!

smrex13 wrote on 07/19/06 at 19:20:19:


I have taught many young, you might say, beginning, players, and I recommend the Tarrasch:  1. d4 d5  2. c4 e6  3. Nc3 c5.  As I've said elsewhere on this board (if it were at all easy to find the threads, I would just point to them here), open positions are fundamental.  The Tarrasch, perhaps more than any other defense to 1. d4, produces open positions and good piece play.  That's what beginners and improving young players need to learn, more than anything.  One nice aspect of the Tarrasch is that it's good against essentially all the closed systems.  For example, 1. c4 e6  2. Nc6 d5  3. d4 c5 or 1. Nf3 d5  2. c4 e6  and soon ...c5.

I would say too that it's a mistake to spend much time on remembering specific variations.  For beginners, the time's better spent solving tactics exercises.  But one specific thing new players need to know about the Tarrasch is that in general, ...Nc6 should precede ...Nf6.  Not nice for Black is 1. d4 d5  2. c4 e6  3. Nc3 c5  4. cxd5 exd5  5. Nf3 Nf6?  6. Bg5 and next 7. e4.   5..Nc6 was correct.  Something else important to know is that if you get into IQP (isolated queen pawn) positions, which is quite usual in the Tarrasch, you have to strive for piece activity and try to avoid too many exchanges.  The IQP confers a space advantage, but it's not so nice in an ending.

I think the Slav is a good bet for a beginner (meaning either the dxc4 + Bf5 variations or maybe the a6 stuff). It quite often - ignoring the really wild tactical variations that probably don't occur that often in the games of beginners anyway - relies on fairly logical piece development (and just getting used to always playing the most obvious move is a pretty good start towards improving). It has interesting strategic play without being too closed and thus should offer a nice variety of variations to play (and to learn from). Before you say that the same applies to a lot of other openings, I'd also like to offer a possibly quite unfounded opinion namely that when both sides are not too strong the Slav can be played in quite a simple way (without things ending up being too wrong) by just being aware of the idea to bring out the c8 bishop without allowing problems with the b7 pawn and as players become stronger they can increase there knowledge and play it better and better. On the other hand I see a higher minimum knowledge threshold for a lot of other openings (like e.g. QGD, QGA or KID).

The QGD is too likely to end in games where either both sides have no clue what they are doing (if they are both weak) or black just gets overplayed if the opponent is stronger. Similarly I would think that the Nimzo and QID are also not ideal. While the QGA is not bad as an opening I feel that it is totally unsuitable (=giving them positions they don't want) for most players (not just beginners).

I'd be tempted to recommend things like the Chigorin or the Budapest, because they often result in interesting and tactical play, but there are just too many deviations in which white just plays some boring Nf3 system without an early c4, which I fear may frustrate black players. And to be honest it's probably better for one's chess development to get to know something more mainstream.

The KID is not that bad even for not so strong players as one can often play it reasonably well by knowning just a few typical plans, but for a beginner it may be a bit too complicated.