Best openings for beginners to improve

I went to the Lichess openings link and set the rating at 400 only.
https://lichess.org/opening

The Novice players on Lichess play these common initial moves, listed below.

65% - 63% King's Pawn Game 1. e4 e5
56% - 56% Queen's Pawn Game 1.d4 d5
4% - 56% Van't Kruijs Opening 1.e3 e5 (analysis#1: e3 Nf6)
3% - 38% Zukertort Opening 1.Nf3 d5 (analysis#1: Nf3 Nf6)
2% - 50% English Opening 1.c4 e5 (analysis#1: c4 c5)
1% - 49% Hungarian Opening 1.g3 e5
1% - 49% Van Geet Opening 1.Nc3 e5 (analysis#1: c4 d5)
1% - 50% Mieses Opening 1.d3 e5 (analysis#1: d3 d5)
1% - 49% Nimzo-Larsen Attack 1.b3 e5
1% - 39% Bird Opening 1.f4 d5
0% - 49% Kádas Opening 1.h4 e5 (analysis#1: h4 d5)
0% - 46% Grob Opening 1.g4 e5 (analysis#1: g4 d5)

The above is the list that is common for a 400 rated player. The analysis#1 showed blacks reply to whites initial move.
If a Beginner has not experienced with the following openings, then it's best they get familiar with them.
Familiar does not mean memorize. All chess players need to understand Chess Principles like Central control, Square control, Controlled squares & Weak squares.

The following openings are common to beginners according to rating...
1000 rated include https://lichess.org/opening/Saragossa_Opening/c3
1200 rated included https://lichess.org/opening/Polish_Opening/b4
1400 rated nothing was included in the prior opening listings.
1600 rated is no longer a beginner and still nothing was added to the list that I've posted.

The stages of the tree compared to opening depths. Two plies is a depth of two, which is one complete move.
1st move is just the Seed of the opening tree. 1000 rated
2nd move is the Sprout of the opening tree. 1200
3rd move is the Seedling of the opening tree. 1400
4th move is the Sapling of the opening tree. 1600
5th move is an Advanced opening depth. 1800
6th moves is an Expert depth. 2000
7th move is a Master depth. 2200

@Alcadeias said in #1:

My goal is not for them to get an advantage out of the opening, but to give them openings that will often lead them to some types of positions which will be particularly instructive to them and will make them improve faster.

I think this should be highlighted. It makes this thread a novelty in my experience.. One often assume thread to be of helpdesk nature the humble wanting improver asking for some deliverance from the misery of rating patzerland.

But here, just that paragraph should mitigate interpretations of the title using the word best. which may trigger the advantage reflex interpretation, as there is no best opening, or there would be not opening theory. (not my cup of tea anyway).

But I hope that this thread will consider the more helpful discussion proposal support by the op paragraph.

After a while the dust might settle and some gems of replies might appear. I was hoping for that paragraph mindset. and forum thread are not always unidirectional communitiy communications with informatino flowing only from the knowers to the implorer.

I know some lichess user with opening questions interest that could help this thread, if they would put on hold the usual rating or perfomance imperative through prior knowledge or preparation even , advantage. and look more at the overall beginner chess develipment potential of proposing some openings over others.

As an expert in having been a begginner, and now an expert in being soemthing like an intermediate (all of which, for adults human of many individual trajectories, might be meaningless). I can say that systems, not the most recent ones. but the first ones might be a good place to start. The idea being to have early positional awareness beyond the move-chess tunnel vision induction of long sharp line, priviledege information secret keeping chess performance priority type of openings.. The more ajectives of words the better, the hell with proper syntax... I am tired of typing too. going for the gist of ideas. damn the delivery.

edit: oh well. we all read what we want to read. I guess one could argue that "improve faster" might still be about preformance.. there might be internal conflict within that paragraph. and this thread might help sort out that conflict between chess mind opening "openings" and fast chess improvment. lots of words often used likely to diverge from readeer to reader.. but i propose that the op be considered under my above bias.

@Alcadeias said in #1:

... to improve fast and become strong?...
I've never become a good player but having a lot of experience from many years of playing it's for clear that:

• sharp, gambit openings are better for quick, tactical winning but require a lot of study so you don't lose the game in the opening
• slow solid openings are easier to play, don't require so much study to get playable middlegame, can be tactical later as well
• I opt for sidelines

Most people say: mainlines, classical, open, tactical, sharp.

• mailines reqiure more preparation
• classical should be easier to develop but somewhat slower
• open is good if you start an attack
• closed is better if you defend
• tactical = sharp, it's usually good but don't go too crazy with tactics where you go for attack and leave everything hanging and you even didn't castle yet.

According to my experience, I believe a chess opening needs to be free from errors for 5 moves to expect to gain some sort of advantage from the combination of those 5 moves. So that's at least 3125 opening combinations before pruning that tree.

I'll assume the class A 1800 players can solve puzzles at a depth of 5, because at 1600, I had no problem solving puzzles at a depth of 4.

At a depth of 5, the engine seemed to play the opening better than the other phases. When I did this study, it was to discover what openings stockfish used at a depth of 5.
https://lichess.org/study/Qopxzc6V

i think begginers should not play any openings.. but play minigames from endgame problems any, not just the winning ones.

those that are near balance. but that might be off-topic. why do beginners insist on playing only from the most complex position in chess beats me... it does! It seems so clear to me that a beginner, adult that is (i.e. more self aware of own needs and curiosities to dig into for some understanding rewards, also less time to make exploration), comes into chess with existing intuition from own non-chess experience in life since they were born. I mean basic spatial intuition.

building on that from endgames (near endgames, balanced), going backward should be rated if that is a factor in that obsession with the most complex position of all standard chess legal positions. (forecasting complexity that is).

I blame a bunch of traditions... not the beginners themselves.

Standard initial position games should only be there to get lost once in a while to remind of the long road backward from endgames...

Did i invert the topic? a variation on the theme of being off-topic.

https://www.chessjournal.com/best-chess-books/#1_Modern_Chess_Openings_By_Nick_De_Firmian

At one time, Modern Chess Openings was an encyclopedia that was revised approximately, on average, once every nine years. The last revision was published in 2008, so a new revision is now long overdue.
"... For new players, I cannot recommend books that use [an encyclopedic] type of presentation [of opening theory], because the explanatory prose that elaborates typical plans and ideas is usually absent, thus leaving the student without any clear idea why certain moves are played or even preferred over other apparently equivalent moves. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)
Perhaps that attitude has come to prevail since 2008.

@Alcadeias said in #1:

... My goal is not for them to get an advantage out of the opening, but to
give them openings that will often lead them to some types of positions which
will be particularly instructive to them and will make them improve faster. ...
@dboing said in #23:
... I think this should be highlighted. ... One often assume thread to be ...
the ... improver asking for some deliverance from ... rating patzerland. ...
What I often guess is that a person is seeking a way to make specific opening choices out of the multitudes available. Alcadeias continued by saying that the "players under consideration here ... do not yet know what openings to play".
@dboing said in #23:
... just that paragraph should mitigate interpretations of the title using
the word best. which may trigger the advantage ... interpretation, as
there is no best opening, ... But I hope that this thread will consider the
more helpful discussion proposal support by the op paragraph. ...
I do not think that an alternate notion of "best" will enable anyone to come to general conclusions about what openings should be played. As I previously tried to indicate (#5), any one opening is not going to be appropriate for "beginners" who vary greatly with regard to how "fast" they want to improve, how "strong" they hope to be, what they want, what they are capable of, and what they are willing to do.
@dboing said in #23:
... I can say that systems, not the most recent ones.
but the first ones might be a good place to start. ...
For the word, "best", my guess would be that IM Watson was thinking in terms of an improvement interpretation (instead of an advantage interpretation) when he indicated that different individuals might understandably make different opening choices:
"... teachers all over the world suggest that inexperienced players begin with 1 e4. ... [After 1...e5 2 Nf3 Nc6,] ... I recommend taking up the classical and instructive move 3 Bc4 at an early stage. ... Of course, you can also play 1 d4 ... A solid and more-or-less universal set-up is 2 Nf3 and 3 Bf4, followed in most cases by 4 e3, 5 Be2 and 6 0-0. I'd rather see my students fight their way through open positions instead; however, if you're not getting out of the opening alive after 1 e4, this method of playing 1 d4 deserves consideration. ..." - IM John Watson in a section of his 2010 book, Mastering the Chess Openings, Volume 4
He seems to me to have recognized that, for an individual, this or that possibility "might be a good place to start."

@dboing said in #26:

i think begginers should not play any openings.. but play minigames
from endgame problems any, not just the winning ones. ...
"... for serious improvement ... consistently play many slow games to practice good thinking habits. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/https://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
Of course, in such games, one is going to have to use SOME sort of opening.
@dboing said in #26:
... Standard initial position games should only be there to get lost
once in a while to remind of the long road backward from endgames ...
IM Silman advised players below 1000 to only go up to page 30 in his endgame book. I do not remember seeing any authority purport to demonstrate how to learn to play the opening working from endgame knowledge.