Chess openings for beginners: the best first moves

The opening is the first eight or ten moves, before either side has a plan. You do not need to memorise any of it. The best opening moves all do the same three things, and once you know what those are you can work out a reasonable move in a position you have never seen. Start with 1. e4 and you are already doing two of them.

What is the best first move in chess?

1. e4 or 1. d4. Both push a centre pawn two squares, both claim space in the middle of the board, and both unblock pieces that are otherwise stuck behind their own pawns. Strong players have argued about which is better for two hundred years, which tells you it does not matter at all at the start.

1. e4 leads to more open positions where pieces come out fast and both kings can get attacked early. 1. d4 tends towards slower games with the pawns locked for longer. For a first opening 1. e4 is the friendlier one, because the tactics that decide beginner games happen in front of you rather than twenty moves later.

The three things an opening is for

Control the centre. The four squares in the middle, d4, e4, d5 and e5, matter because a piece standing there or attacking there reaches more of the board. A knight on e5 hits eight squares. The same knight in a corner hits two.

Get your knights and bishops out. Every piece still sitting on its starting square is a piece doing nothing. Knights usually go to c3 and f3, bishops to wherever they have a long diagonal, and they want to be out inside the first six moves.

Castle early. Knight out, bishop out, castle, usually somewhere between moves four and ten. It takes the king out of the middle and brings a rook towards it in the same turn, and it is on how to castle in chess with boards for the rules that stop you.

Two openings to play as white

The Italian Game is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4. Pawn to the centre, knight out attacking the e5 pawn, bishop out pointing at f7, and white can castle next move. Every move does one of the three jobs and nothing is doing anything clever.

The Queen's Gambit is 1. d4 d5 2. c4, offering a pawn to pull black's centre pawn off to the side. It is not really a gambit: take the pawn and white wins it straight back in most lines.

If even that is more than you want to think about, the London System is the simplest of the three: d4, Bf4, e3, Nf3, c3, Bd3, Nbd2 and castle, played in roughly that order against nearly anything black does. It is dull and it works, which is a decent trade while you are learning.

The best opening moves for black

Black is a move behind, so the job is to claim a share of the centre before white takes all of it.

Against 1. e4, the straightforward answer is 1... e5, meeting the pawn head on and heading for the same Italian positions from the other side. 1... c5, the Sicilian, fights for the centre from the side and leads to sharper games with more theory behind them. 1... e6, the French, builds a solid wall and accepts a cramped position for a few moves.

Against 1. d4, 1... d5 is the direct reply and keeps things symmetrical. 1... Nf6 develops a knight, stops white playing e4 for free, and goes into a different family of openings entirely.

Two are enough to start with. Play 1... e5 against 1. e4 and follow it with Nc6, Bc5 or Nf6, and castle: after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4, both 3... Bc5 and 3... Nf6, the Two Knights, are good. Play 1... d5 against 1. d4 and follow it with Nf6, e6, Be7 and castle. That covers both of white's main first moves with about six moves to remember.

Opening mistakes that lose beginner games

Bringing the queen out early. She gets chased around by knights and bishops that are developing while they attack her, and you lose three moves running away.

Moving the same piece twice. Every repeat move is one your opponent spends getting another piece out. Get everything off the back row once before moving anything a second time.

Too many pawn moves. Two or three in the opening. Pawns cannot go backwards, so every extra push is a hole you cannot fill in again.

Leaving the king in the middle. Castle. Games where one player never castles usually end with their king in the open and a rook still sitting in the corner.

Grabbing pawns on the edge. Taking a b-pawn or an h-pawn with the queen costs two or three moves in the part of the game where moves are worth the most.

That is the four-move checkmate, and it is the one opening trap worth knowing from both sides: how to stop it, and why playing for it costs you the game against anyone who does. It is laid out move by move on the 4 move checkmate.

How to practise openings here

Play the first six moves against a friend in 2 player chess offline, pass the device across, and see whether you both got your knights and bishops out and castled. That is the whole test, and it is faster than reading about it. The same board works online with a friend over a shared link.

Afterwards, open the Moves button and read back what you played. Once you can see the opening written out as 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6, the pattern in your own games is obvious, and how to read chess notation takes about five minutes. Every piece and its moves are on chess pieces names and moves, alongside the rules of chess.

Frequently asked questions

Now play it

Play 2 player chess offline on one device or play chess online with a friend.