It is my very strong belief that beginners should generally start by playing King’s Pawn openings — in other words, 1.e4.
One of the most important skills for a developing chess player is becoming familiar with tactics, complications and combinations. These tend to arise naturally and relatively quickly in many King’s Pawn openings.
After 1.e4, the diagonal of White’s light-squared bishop is immediately opened. This means the bishop can potentially become active very early in the game and may, for example, put pressure on the f7 square, which at the beginning of the game is defended only by the Black king.
This helps introduce beginners to an important idea: pieces are not simply developed because a rule says they should be developed. They are developed with a purpose.
Another useful feature of 1.e4 is that the pawn on e4 is not protected by White’s queen.
This can make the opening much more of an exercise in both attacking and defending. A beginner quickly discovers that it is not enough simply to carry out their own plan. They must also pay attention to what their opponent has just done.
That is an extremely important habit to develop.
Before making a move, a player should be asking questions such as:
What is my opponent threatening?
Have they attacked one of my pieces or pawns?
If I make the move I am considering, what could they do next?
Open King’s Pawn positions frequently punish a player quite quickly for ignoring these questions. Although losing a piece or overlooking a tactic can be frustrating, it is also a very effective way to learn.
With a Queen’s Pawn opening beginning 1.d4, the pawn on d4 is already protected by the queen.
There can therefore be more flexibility with move order, and the resulting positions can sometimes develop more slowly. This is certainly not a weakness of Queen’s Pawn openings — many of the greatest players in chess history have used them extremely successfully — but I do not necessarily think that this makes them the best starting point for a beginner.
Quieter positions can allow a player to accumulate smaller positional advantages without having to deal with quite as many immediate tactical problems.
Learning how to build those small advantages is an extremely important chess skill, but I believe it is more useful once a player has developed a reasonable tactical foundation.
There is little benefit in obtaining a good positional advantage if, a few moves later, it disappears because of a simple tactical oversight.
Tactics can eventually arise from any opening, including Queen’s Pawn openings. My argument is not that 1.d4 chess is somehow free of tactics.
Rather, I think 1.e4 tends to expose a beginner more quickly to positions in which tactical awareness is essential.
Checks, captures, attacks on undefended pieces, forks, pins, discovered attacks and combinations can occur frequently. A player begins to learn that every move can alter the tactical situation on the board.
This creates a strong foundation for later positional understanding.
Once a player becomes reasonably comfortable tactically, ideas such as weak squares, pawn structures, good and bad bishops, open files and long-term positional advantages become much easier to use effectively.
I also do not believe that beginners should spend large amounts of time memorising long opening variations.
It is much more useful initially to understand some basic principles:
These ideas give a beginner something to think about even when the opponent plays a move they have never seen before.
Memorising ten moves of an opening is of limited value if move six is different from the memorised sequence and the player no longer knows what to do.
Understanding why the moves are played is far more valuable.
There is another reason I favour tactical King’s Pawn positions for beginners: chess tactics are a great deal of fun.
For someone who is just discovering chess, a game containing attacks, threats, combinations and opportunities to win material can be much more exciting than a very slow positional struggle.
Enjoyment matters.
A beginner who finds chess exciting is much more likely to want to play more games, solve tactical puzzles and improve. This creates something of a win-win situation: the positions are enjoyable while also developing some of the most important basic chess skills.
None of this means that I would insist that every beginner must play 1.e4 indefinitely.
There may be a perfectly good reason for an individual player to prefer 1.d4, and as a player develops it is extremely useful to experience different types of positions.
Queen’s Pawn openings teach important skills of their own. Pieces may exert pressure more indirectly, positional advantages can build gradually, and the player often needs to understand how the pawn structure determines the correct plan.
These are essential chess skills.
My view is simply that it is usually better to develop the tactical foundations first and then add these more subtle positional ideas.
Ultimately, the purpose of learning an opening should not simply be to reach a particular position from memory.
The aim should be to understand what is happening on the board.
Why has a piece been developed to a particular square?
Which side of the board should I be playing on?
What is my opponent trying to achieve?
Is there a tactical threat that needs to be dealt with immediately?
These questions matter far more than knowing the name of a variation.
For most beginners, I therefore favour starting with 1.e4, experiencing active and tactical positions and learning the essential skills of attacking and defending. Once those foundations are stronger, quieter and more positional openings can be explored with much greater understanding.
My chess tutoring and coaching can help with this process too. If there is a good reason for an individual pupil to play a Queen’s Pawn opening instead, I am very happy to explore that as well. Chess teaching should ultimately suit the developing player rather than force every pupil into exactly the same opening repertoire.