Best openings for beginners to improve

But what if? learning openings for their position information changes rather than which move before the other.

so from advantage obsession, to improvement obsession, to my understanding obsession.

From endgames (near, no just TB land, and the balanced ones, not the well known winning ones), as mini-games not as dynamics practice (which often imply the winning ones only), to openings.

I guess middle game might be approached from both ends... (In my case too late, I also fell in the trap to play opening games from early on, too late for middle game approach).

I am not suggesting to play each game, itself, in retrograde mode, though. That would be pushing it... :-)

Also, using an opening explorer in-game might allow beginners to experience balanced middle-games without the opening understanding barrier of potential, leaving that to my proposal to really understand chess from simpler forecasting complexity material classes of mini-games, and then going backward for the initial starting positions expereince.

I am just trying to comb the hairs in another direction. It might bring insights.

In reality, there is not one way to do anything. I also never comb my hair(s)! and another :-)

When going for a walk in a new town, you will not know where the store is. So you need a map to show you where your store that you want is. It goes the same for everything. You need to know your destination. In chess, it's about how to end the game. Once and only once you know how to end the game in all it's forms (drawn, stalemate, checkmate), then and only then, does a player have the knowledge to understand the aim of the game. So they can then play openings that will end the game quickly, like the ones that end in 2, 3, 4, or 5 moves.

It does not take long to learn the fundamentals of chess, it just take years to learn the scenic routes of chess. The main line might be easy with an engine, if you "assume" the engine is "actually giving the mainline" to play.

I wait for the opening to complete it's 5th move (10 ply) before comparing the opening values with other openings.
So the players has thousands, if not millions of combinations before they reach the 5th move to become familiar with. Most end up playing only a few common openings and let the game unfold, in any direction, until they see a way, to end the game. A player may get frustrated if they don't know how to end a game. So end games is first for beginners. Feed them with a spoon not a bowl.

Try less fashionable openings, so that you don't end up in traps learned by your opponents. This often means non-symmetrical openings, which also have the advantage of quite exciting attacks.

Ignore the critics who say, 'no grandmaster has played this since 1932'. It doesn't matter. You are not playing Carlsen nor are you likely to. What you are doing is taking your opponent out of his or her knowledge area, so your game is all about skill and little about opening lines.

For the ones that want to learn of memorize the mainline then they need to make a system ot find it.

Example: Move 6 is my cut-off point before I press the opening explorer analysis button. Each branch is about (~) depth and centipawn values, to generally compare openings. https://lichess.org/opening

1. King's Pawn Game: ~ 47 @ 0.3
   https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/e4_e5_Nf3_Nc6_Bc4_Bc5_c3_Nf6_d4_exd4

2. King's Pawn, Sicilian Defense: ~ 41 @ +0.0
   https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/e4_c5_Nf3_Nc6_d4_cxd4_Nxd4_e5_Nxc6_bxc6

3. King's Pawn, French Defense: ~ 48 @ +0.3
   https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/e4_e6_d4_d5_e5_c5_c3_Nc6_Nf3_Qb6

4. King's Pawn, Scandinavian Defense: ~ 32 @ +0.9
   https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/e4_d5_exd5_Qxd5_Nc3_Qd8_Nf3_Nf6_Bc4_e6

See how the tree of the King's pawn can be compared with it's branches.
Once you find the highest value for the main branch of the King's Pawn Games, do the same with 1.d4
Discover it's highest tree value and then compare those two tree values to really a conclusion of the mainline to follow.
It becomes the mainline (highway) to reach the middle game. Play safe and enjoy the scenic routes too.

@coledavis said in #33:

Try less fashionable openings, so that you don't end up in traps learned by your opponents. This often means non-symmetrical openings, which also have the advantage of quite exciting attacks.

What is the relation between non-symetrical openings and traps or existence of exciting attacks. I am curious of such transcending points of view for that huge tree with constellations of variations. If such categories might be understodd it might help reduce the sisyphean aspect of the opening barrier of potential.

So are there underlying notions that relatied those 3 things: amount of symetry in the opening (i assume in move and the ordering, or what?), existence of remote trap consequences to trap triggers (if pusshing the trap notion back to its natural language ancestor), and then "exciting" and "attack".

I am sorry to appear to just bug on words. I only do it halfway. I think i understand what is meant, but since there iis hardly any occasion to confront what is meant exactly, we may all drift apart and use same words for different meaning..

use more own words to elaborate, or analogies might helps detect discrepancies, for concise wording propagation.

But i would like to know about such levels of association that could make sense of the big bush. from afar.
I know that the tree, move based addressing filiation paths is no garentee of "open game" conservation as a trait among children of a first move. ECO still is stuck with such earlier beliefs about first moves carrying some features, and has added TM i guess, so that people like me would not complain, i imagine, same for closed and semi-closed.

I am not complaining about those features validity when used in game contextes with position features at hand.

just that focusing on the move story sequence seems not to carry that much position features through first move inheritance.

Some of us prefer to have in position based knowledge in general to be autonomous from preparation with deep lines, so that no matter where the move sequence wanders, there would be board signal to help figure out game survival.

The big tree of move classification system (and naming), does not matter if appearance of rational coordinate system of segments in such tree (e.g. ECO), is not very informative of the board. It is just a raw street adress system with no content awareness in its address coding. At least not in the move inheritance slice of the big world of chess positions that only looking at move decisions to completely describe all openings. It is missing a lot of useful information for many of us, not keen to blind long seqeunce memorization (caricature to express the other end of such dichotomy existst).

Transpositions are everywhere.. or potentially. and that is only about strict position information identity, it does not include the position similarities that can't be carried by genealogy from first move.

So not bugging on words for nothing.. because i really want to know what you were pointing at. and those words alone don,t help yet. That is the kind of thing, my type of chess learner would like to have in luggage when exploring openings from position awareness first (and move reflexive seqeunces later, or never).

sorry for taking so much space. but trying to push things that are rarely expressed seems to require more explanations. can't rely on common sense here. I am critical of over reliance on that....

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think that there are many more lines in non-symmetrical. However, I may be wrong. I would suggest, however, that my advice to use unfashionable openings is still good.

None. Begginers should stick to chess principles.

The Ponziani is a good opening for "beginners".

@dboing said in #31:

But what if? learning openings for their position information changes
rather than which move before the other. so from advantage obsession,
to improvement obsession, to my understanding obsession. ...
I think that there is pretty broad support in favor of advising beginners to seek understanding.
@dboing said in #31:
... I am not suggesting to play each game, itself, in
retrograde mode, though. That would be pushing it... :-)
I am not sure what you ARE suggesting. Silman seems to me to have been fairly clear and specific in advising those under 1000 to go up to page 30 in his endgame book. I don’t know that he came up with the perfect recipe, but I don’t remember much complaint about him being very far off. Not too long ago, in another discussion, we were looking at a game that started with 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 f5. I am not confident that Lucena-study would have helped the player with the decision on whether or not to play 4 exf5.
@dboing said in #31:
Also, using an opening explorer in-game might allow beginners to ...
And deprive them of the opportunity to learn from mistakes in the opening. I once had quite an educational experience, trying to bumble my way through a Danish Gambit.
@Toscani said in #32:
... Once and only once you know how to end the game in all it's forms (drawn,
stalemate, checkmate), then and only then, does a player have the knowledge
to understand the aim of the game. So they can then play openings that will
end the game quickly, like the ones that end in 2, 3, 4, or 5 moves. ...
I suspect that endgame study, for the must part, will not be much help with openings where the game ends in 2, 3, 4, or 5 moves.
@coledavis said in #33:
Try less fashionable openings, so that you don't end up in traps
learned by your opponents. This often means non-symmetrical
openings, which also have the advantage of quite exciting attacks. ...
What you are doing is taking your opponent out of his or her knowledge
area, so your game is all about skill and little about opening lines.
There is a lot of appeal to that approach, and I have seen authors, such as IM Watson, seem to refer to it as an acceptable option. However, with IM Watson and many others, there seems to have been an attitude that it is a beneficial educational experience to gradually learn the ins and outs of the 1 e4 e5 game. Hypothetical example: “Hmm. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 didn’t work out so well for me. Maybe, next time, I will try 3...Bc5.” Books (such as First Steps: 1 e4 e5) have been written to help beginners work through an evolution towards better tactical understanding in the opening. Also, an unusual opening can work reasonably at one level, but there can be problems down the road if one works one’s way up to stronger opponents, having skipped the benefits of a 1 e4 e5 education.
"... You should play the simpler and more adventurous openings, from which you will learn how to use the pieces. Much later on you can go on to the more difficult openings - if you play them now you won't understand what you are doing ... Play the openings beginning [1 e4 e5]. ... if you haven't learnt how to play the open game you won't be able to use positional advantage even if you are able to get it. ..." - C. H. O'D. Alexander and T. J. Beach (1963)
@Toscani said in #34:
For the ones that want to learn of memorize the mainline then they
need to make a system ot find it. Example: Move 6 is my cut-off point
before I press the opening explorer analysis button. Each branch is
about (~) depth and centipawn values, to generally compare openings. ...
I am not confident that such values will necessarily identify good choices for a particular human (that the machine does not understand very well). A machine might be fine after 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6, but me ... not so much.
@dboing said in #35:
What is the relation between non-symetrical openings and traps or existence
of exciting attacks. ... are there underlying notions that relatied those 3
things: amount of symetry in the opening ..., existence of remote trap
consequences to trap triggers ..., and then "exciting" and "attack". ...
Maybe, but I think that the main point is more simple and practical. Many beginners receive an initial 1 e4 e5 education and it is simply more common among beginners than anything else. Consequently, an opponent is more likely to be ready with a trick in those lines.
@dboing said in #35:
... That is the kind of thing, my type of chess learner would like
to have in luggage when exploring openings from position
awareness first (and move reflexive seqeunces later, or never). ...
That is a common sentiment, but one should be aware that, generally, if one has been able to get a positional advantage, tactics become involved in order to use it successfully.
@Alientcp said in #37:
... Begginers should stick to chess principles.
A beginner could bumble around painfully for a long time without help like the Emms suggestion to react to 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 with 3...Bc5 instead of 3...Nf6.