Study Chess Openings Smarter: Finding Your Style as a Beginner

Not sure if studying chess openings are worth your time?

Wondering how much time and effort the study actually deserves?

Tired of deciding which opening to play only after the game has already started?

This guide is a simple and practical take on learning openings. Built on what actually helped me as a player trying to get better step by step.

If you're on a similar path, you'll find something useful here. Pour yourself some tea or coffee. Let's figure out your favorite opening together!

Does Studying Opening Matter For a Beginner?

Yes it does. What makes studying the opening important is not what is played, but why it is played.

A good opening study helps you understand why each move is played and that improves your overall chess skills. It also helps you stay in control and notice when your opponent starts to lose their way. 

I came across a comment on one of the chess threads on Reddit:

"I usually play the English as White. When my opponent allows it, and I open the center, having four or five pieces aiming at d5 feels satisfying."

Now, can you really tell this person that studying openings isn’t worth it?

People who say you don't need to study openings until a certain rating are often the same ones who'll tell you not to leave your pawns hanging. Understanding an opening helps prevent hanging pieces early and helps with developing a game plan.

There're also some humorous takes on Reddit about whether beginners should study chess openings 😀

Chess Openings - Captured from Reddit

Getting out of the opening alive

It’s not only about getting out of the opening, it connects to your middlegame plans too. 

It helps me understand middlegame strategies better and gives me new ideas for attacks and different kinds of positions. That's why it makes sense to learn openings over time.

Games never go exactly as planned, but at least it’s usually a situation where I have some ideas, understand what common blunders look like.

How Studying Chess Openings Will Make You a Better Player

Play with purpose make fewer blunders

This simple pawn move supports a central pawn while freeing the c1 bishop. Even without an immediate threat like black's knight jumping to f6 (and attacking to our e4 pawn), such prophylactic and multi purpose moves help save time and build a strong position.

The opening phase in chess is probably the most important part of the game for beginners. It takes some time to build the habit of playing moves with a clear purpose. In the opening, that purpose is usually to follow the basic principles of chess. When we don’t follow them, we often make blunders and end up in a losing position right from the start.

But it’s not just a beginner problem. Even when a player starts improving, the opening is still a critical phase. Yes, they may begin to understand what they’re doing, but new questions start to pop up. Sticking to the basic principles takes time to fully get used to. And when we ignore them, we still blunder and fall into bad positions. The tricky part is, we don’t always realize it during the game. We just keep struggling from a worse position.

If we haven’t yet developed the habit of reviewing our games, we usually just rage-quit or smash that rematch button out of frustration.

Knowing some opening theory makes it much easier to develop your pieces with a clear purpose.

For example, when I play the Benko Gambit, I know my focus is to attack my opponent’s queenside. I don’t want to just make moves and see what happens. I have a goal in mind from the very start of the game.

Less blunders thanks to opening principles 

In this position, green circles highlight the key squares we aim to control or protect, while the arrows indicate the logical next moves that support development and strategic goals. Each move follows a purpose, staying aligned with opening principles rather than making random or reactive decisions.

When I study openings, I keep coming back to the basic principles. Even if I never get the exact same positions in my own games, the logic sticks with me. Because all those "principles" are really based on repeated patterns that just work.

What are these principles?

• Develop your pieces to active squares

• Keep your king safe

• Understand pawn structures

• Don’t waste time pushing too many pawns

Over time, you start building a second layer of principles;

• Don’t move the f-pawn too early

• Develop knights before bishops

• Control the center with central pawns

• Bishop pairs; the idea of strong vs weak bishops

• Don’t move the same piece twice in the opening unless you have to

• Castle early to stay safe

You can always question these ideas too. Try things out, make mistakes, and figure out which principles really work for you.

Opening Ideas - From Beginner Moves to Bold Strategies

A lot of 1200–1400 players with tons of games play King's Pawn Opening without really knowing. It’s solid, sure, but they don’t really get better.

King's Pawn Opening

The King's Pawn Opening starts with 1.e4, controls the center and opens up the board for your queen and bishop. From here, you can head into fun and strong openings like the Italian Game or the Ruy López. That’s why e4 is a popular choice it simply serves more than one purpose.

Every line you learn a bit deeply makes you better. Here are some opening ideas worth studying;

Queen’s Gambit
This opening teaches you how to control the center and use your c-pawn well. It gives you a solid setup and lots of useful plans to learn.

Caro-Kann Defense
It helps you develop your pieces smoothly and stay solid without being too passive.

Slow Spanish (Ruy Lopez)
If you don’t know the knight move from b1 to d2 to f1 to g3, you’re missing out. That little idea makes a big difference in long, strategic games.

Open Spanish (as White)
If you don’t know the theory and can’t win back the pawn, your opponent gets a free pawn advantage. Knowing a bit here really helps.

Advance French
Learning the Greek Gift bishop sacrifice on h7 or h2 is super helpful whether you want to try it or defend against it.

Sicilian Defense
Especially in sharp lines like the Najdorf, being ready for early tricks like the Bowdler Attack or queenside castling can give you a quick advantage.

You Shouldn’t Ignore These Advices

Making sure pieces are defended

An intermediate player usually doesn’t have very sharp calculation skills. So you might not always notice threats right away. But if your pieces are defended, you’ve already handled many possible threats before they even show up.

Making sure your pieces are defended and developing them toward the center. Just having these habits can already make you “the chess guy” in your friend group.

The Best Attack Is No Attack

Don’t go for pointless attacks too early especially not if they make you move the same piece twice.

You don’t need to play wild or aggressive chess against weaker players. Just play solid and wait. Often they’ll run out of natural moves and start making their position worse by themselves. Then you’ll have targets everywhere.

I like when my opponents push their pawns too far. It gives me chances to go after their weaknesses.

Avoiding Common Traps While Learning Openings

Opening traps are very common, especially among beginners. Players who want to increase their Elo rating quickly often like using these tricks. They do not follow the basic rules of the opening and make moves that look strange or hard to understand. You try to answer with a good move, but if you do not know how to stop the trap, you will probably lose the game.

When we study openings, we should also take a look at these traps. At least there aren’t too many of those.

To avoid falling for these traps, just stick to piece development. For example, instead of taking a free pawn that looks nice, you may need to keep developing your bishop. If you can follow the basic rules, you might even put your opponent in a bad position.

There are some very well-known traps. Things like Scholar’s Mate and the Fried Liver Attack. We can look at those when the time is right. For now, let us return to our main topic.

Psychological Benefits of Studying Openings

When you're moving from the beginner stage to really trying to improve, staying motivated can feel fragile.

Being stuck at the same level for a long time is hard. It makes you wonder if chess is even for you. I’ve had that thought many times.

One of the quickest ways to move past this doubt is learning how not to end up in a bad position right out of the opening.

Chess is fun. But to enjoy it, you need to feel like you’re doing something right. If your position is bad from the start, it doesn’t feel like a hobby anymore. It turns into a problem you have to fix.

From a psychological point of view 

Feeling at home in a position and knowing your plan makes a huge difference. That kind of confidence helped me improve.

Studying Openings vs Studying Tactics

I've seen people argue really strongly about this topic. But I think the disagreement mostly comes from differences in how people define things. Almost everyone actually agrees at the core but they approach and express the idea in different ways.

When strong players say “don’t focus too much on openings” what they probably mean is “don’t just focus on memorizing long lines.” And that makes sense because many beginners treat openings as a memorization task.

My take is that it’s a good idea to learn how knowing an opening can actually help your game.

Tactics stem from better positions. If I play random moves in the opening I’m not going to have tactical chances. I just couldn’t imagine it.

People won’t always respond with perfect theory. You have to know how to punish the mistakes that come from that. So even if you’re only spending about 10 percent of your time on openings maybe 30 percent should go to tactics. Because you hit diminishing returns very quickly if your opponent deviates early.

So yes tactics are extremely important especially at lower levels. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore openings. Learning a few lines and more importantly understanding the ideas behind them can really help your games.

Could a Few Openings Take You Far?

There are many opening lines out there. When you sit down to study it's easy to feel lost. So would it be enough to just learn a few of them really well?

Honestly yes but also not forever.

You can go pretty far with that approach up to around 1600 level. After that things start to get tougher.

Of course we’ll divide openings into white and black.

The moves e4 and d4 are the most popular starting moves both for beginners and grandmasters. So we should slowly try to get better at one defense against e4 and one defense against d4.

For white I don’t have a specific suggestion. Because first we need to figure out what kind of playing style you prefer. If you have no idea yet you can just pick one opening after e4 and one after d4. But our next topic “How Do I Pick My Favorite Opening?” will help you decide.

Here is the downside

Over time relying too much on the same lines can hold back your overall growth.

Choosing Your Favorite Opening

There are two main problems every player who’s trying to fall in love with chess eventually faces;

1. Not spending enough time on openings

2. Not using that time effectively

Once we agree that studying openings matters this is the part that makes everything else we said more meaningful. I’ll talk about how I study and how we can get the most out of opening preparation.

I’m sure you’ll agree with me memorizing is not the way. Even if you memorize one line perfectly you still don’t know what variation you’ll end up in because it also depends on your opponent. You simply can’t memorize everything. 

If you focus on memorizing you won’t develop your ability to reason.

And now, it's time to choose our favorite opening.

What Do You Play Next?

After the classic moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, we've reached one of the most familiar opening position in all of chess. It's a crossroads that can lead to openings like the Italian Game, the Scotch, the Ruy López, or even some tricky gambits. What do you play next?

When you set up this position using a chess engine, and choose to continue with the bishop, it will highlight all the squares inside the green circle, showing that each of them leads into a known theory. The square inside the red circle 🔴d3 is the only one you should avoid placing your bishop on.

Playing to that square doesn't immediately lose the game. However, while all the other squares serve a specific purpose or goal, the d3 square lacks a short-term objective and is generally seen as a loss of tempo.

Why is Bd3 a poor move?

• You block one of the key developing squares for your queenside bishop.

• Your queenside knight had three potential developing squares. Now, if you need to develop it via d2, you'll first have to move the bishop again and then push a pawn to make room.

• Keeping both the knight and bishop so close together on passive squares may later invite a tactical threat, such as a fork targeting both pieces in a single move.

What should you play next?

Knowing what kind of positions you feel comfortable in will make choosing an opening easier.

• Do you like it when your opponent runs out of time?
• Do you prefer aggressive play and want to keep pressure on your opponent all the time?
• Do you want to surprise your opponent and push them into mistakes?
• Or maybe It just feels fun or easy to play that opening

At my level games are still mostly decided by who blunders less. It really doesn’t matter which opening you choose as long as it leads to a position you enjoy playing

Once you figure out what kind of game you want then you can start looking for model games to study.

In my next post I’ll go into this topic more and try grouping different openings. I’m open to your suggestions as well.

Thanks for sticking with me this far. Enjoy your games!