The guide of chess basics of the opening for beginners
How to play the opening well when you are a beginner, what's important ?
A chess game is divided into three parts:
1. The Opening
2. The Middlegame
3. The Endgame
It is very important to perform the opening correctly because it will allow you to attack much more effectively and also to defend much better and easily in the middle of the game.
The goal of the opening is to develop your pieces and secure your king.
Here are the basic principles to apply in all your games :
1. Always develop your pieces with the idea of controlling the center of the board, whether from a distance or with pieces on the central squares.
Why?
The central squares are the most important because from there the pieces can control more squares and are more effective.
2. Do not move the same piece more than once.
Why?
Every time you move the same piece you lose a tempo, which means your opponent will finish his development before you and start attacking you while all your pieces are not developed or your king is not safe. This makes you more vulnerable.
3. Don't take out your queen too early in the game.
Why?
Because at the beginning of the game all the developed pieces are of lesser value compared to the queen, the queen will always have to retreat in the event of an opponent's attack and you will lose tempo.
4. Preferably develop your knights before your bishops.
Why?
Because in closed positions such as the opening knights have a slightly higher value because they can move more easily on the board, whereas bishops have more value when there is more space.
And you have to wait to see where your opponent will position his pieces to know where your bishop will be best positioned.
5. Put the king in safety by castling early in the game.
Why?
Because the king is the most important piece to protect, especially for a beginner. If it is not safe, you will be attacked.
6. Dont trade your bishop for a knight without a good reason
Why?
Because a bishop has a slightly higher value than a knight, and generally by doing this you will help your opponent develop his pieces.
When does the opening end ?
When all minor pieces (knights, bishops) are developed, when the king is safe, when both rooks are connected.
How to choose your opening ?
You should not play overly complicated openings requiring a lot of knowledge, you should not play gambits.
In fact you can choose the opening you like if it is not too complex, try several and when you find one that you like ALWAYS play the same one, this will help a lot to progress and discover the different variations, traps, etc...
A good known opening for beginners is to play 1.e4 to play the Italian game. But 1.d4 is fine too.
What should not be done?
Learning the different moves or variations by heart is useless because a beginner will make a lot of mistakes anyway by not having the theoretical knowledge of an astronomical quantity of moves (each opening has a large quantity of variations and in addition at low level players will rarely play the theoretical moves apart from the first 4 or 5), instead you have to learn the ideas and the goal of the chosen opening.
Playing bullet and blitz games. Playing games of 15+10 or more is perfect. You will have enough time to think.
Hire a paid coach to learn the openings and variations, traps. (for beginners there is a huge amount of quality content made by experienced and talented players, which is free).
Buy a book on a specific opening.
If you want to practice more to acquire additional knowledge after having successfully mastered the basic principles of opening you can :
1. Use the specific lichess puzzles for each of them :
https://lichess.org/training/openings
2. The lichess database of all openings :
https://lichess.org/opening
3. Use the wonderfull lichess learning features
https://lichess.org/practice
https://lichess.org/training
https://lichess.org/study
4. Watch explanatory videos about chess in general. (for ex. : Chess Fundamentals in 5 parts by IM John Bartholomew on Youtube)
5. Watch games of more advanced players. (not necessarily professional games but games of players with at least 300 more Elo points more)
6. Use Lichess computer analysis.
To finish :
If you apply these basic principles and avoid giving away free pieces as much as possible, you will progress quickly without spending a lot of time working on it.
You won't play the perfect move every time but what you do will never be bad. And the vast majority of the time your moves will be good or very good.
And you will be ready to face the middle game where strategy and tactics are the most important things. And don't forget the most important and also the most complicated thing to learn in chess is the endgames.
The order of things to work on to make lasting progress is 1. the endgames, 2. the middlegame, 3. the openings and their variations.
After that, buying a book or taking lessons with a coach are possible options, but not necessarily necessary. It depends on your desire.