mikedilger on Nostr: The standard advice to beginners is not to learn chess openings yet. Instead learn ...
The standard advice to beginners is not to learn chess openings yet. Instead learn the opening principles like controlling the center, developing quickly, and castling. Maybe learn some pawn structure ideas, about open files, about the weak f pawns. Learn not to bring your queen out too soon. But most of all, play a lot of games and get better at not hanging your pieces (and noticing when your opponent hangs theirs).
The reason beginners shouldn't learn openings yet is .... well I suppose not well communicated. There are people like this contrarian who admit "I don't understand the logic of this". https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kTuSA1pLx9U
I'd like to respond to this guy, but I'm not going to create a YouTube account for that purpose, so I will share what I have learned to you guys instead. But beware I am a chess beginner. I just happened to have figured out this advice from first principles, not from someone telling me and me trusting them.
If a game starts e4 e5, it almost always progresses Nf3 Nc6. The reason is that any other move is significantly worse. There are a few alternatives, but let me stick to the point by pretending there aren't. Intermediate players learning openings don't have to learn what to do if after e4 e5 their opponent plays anything else. They can prune that huge space of possibilites because intermediate players are good enough to not play those bad moves. But beginners will play them. Beginners have no idea and they will play anything. So to study an opening effectively against a beginner you have to memorize FAR MORE information than if you know that you are playing against at least an intermediate player who you can reasonably expect will not play very bad early moves.
That is why you should wait to learn openings. You certainly can learn them early, but you won't get much real game reinforcement as your beginner opponents will quickly derail you into some unstudied space that neither of you know anything about.
The reason beginners shouldn't learn openings yet is .... well I suppose not well communicated. There are people like this contrarian who admit "I don't understand the logic of this". https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kTuSA1pLx9U
I'd like to respond to this guy, but I'm not going to create a YouTube account for that purpose, so I will share what I have learned to you guys instead. But beware I am a chess beginner. I just happened to have figured out this advice from first principles, not from someone telling me and me trusting them.
If a game starts e4 e5, it almost always progresses Nf3 Nc6. The reason is that any other move is significantly worse. There are a few alternatives, but let me stick to the point by pretending there aren't. Intermediate players learning openings don't have to learn what to do if after e4 e5 their opponent plays anything else. They can prune that huge space of possibilites because intermediate players are good enough to not play those bad moves. But beginners will play them. Beginners have no idea and they will play anything. So to study an opening effectively against a beginner you have to memorize FAR MORE information than if you know that you are playing against at least an intermediate player who you can reasonably expect will not play very bad early moves.
That is why you should wait to learn openings. You certainly can learn them early, but you won't get much real game reinforcement as your beginner opponents will quickly derail you into some unstudied space that neither of you know anything about.