Beginner Openings?

I have recently started liking chess (a lot ) and I was looking for some beginner openings to try out. I've just been kind of messing around with different openings but I wanted to settle down and study a few openings. I've heard that the London and Colle systems don't require much theory, would they be good for beginners? Any suggestions would be great!

Since your a beginner some advie I can give u is just to totally skip the openings.  Study your basic King and pawn endings and rook endings, and do nothing but tactics you will improve much faster than just studying openings

For people who don't want to learn too much about openings, I recommend the Hippopotamus:

And the Pirc (a.k.a. King's Indian Attack, as White):

Both of these systems can be played against pretty much anything, with either color. If want a more aggressive opening choice, the Stonewall and the Colle will serve you as White and Black against everything except 1. e4.

I would say learn one opening and play it consistently. Once you get a hang of the intricacies involved in the opening plays, you can pick up other openings rather easily. As TacticsNinja rightly put, practice tactics and they alone can take you up faster than anything else at this stage.

Being a beginner, learn one opening, learn its basics but dont go to deeply inside. I suggest 1. e4 and then learn the basic ideas of the french, russian and spanish and  sicilian games (French Defence, Petroff Defence, Sicilian Defence and Ruy Lopez)

Dont go to deeply in the opening, i suggest u sharpen ur tactics

I agree with much of the above. Look into a few openings and see which appeal to you. Personally, I might suggest the Stonewall or Torre Attack, though there may be better choices with which I am not familiar. I'm hesitant to recommend e4 because of all the diverse and well studied choices black has to steer things into lines he favors. If you play other relative beginners, they may not know defenses to d4 as well.

Whatever you choose, familiarize yourself with the ideas, don't try to memorize move lists. As you look through variations and other players' games, try to see how the openings allow for development, and how all the pieces are activated quickly. I've read through several games here played by lower rated players, and development seems to be a major weakness. They strive for quick but shallow attacks and flashy sacrifices. Often their opponent survives the bloodbath, and when the smoke clears, both sides have three or four pieces each (not pawns, pieces!) still on their original squares!

A little opening knowledge will allow you to get to the middle game with a better position and more chances. Now is when you can employ the tactics that should also be a part of your study.

As someone suggested, also include study of some simple endgames. Knowing what to do with that extra pawn helps. Eventually, you'll learn to recognize endgames you know how to win, and then how to play in the latter midgame to  trade down a midgame advantage into the endgame you can win. If the endgame is a complete mystery, you'll snatch many a defeat from the jaws of victory. A little bit of knowledge can go a long way when the board is almost empty.

Thank you for your responses! I'm sorry i couldn't reply sooner.. i was flying. I'm going to try and sharpen my tactics, i think i'm putting too much thought into my openings (not that they aren't important :P).

The idea behind doing some opening study is to enable you to get developed and hopefully into the middle game at least equal. Barring an error by your opponent, there will be few tactical opportunities before then.

The idea behind tactical study is to develop some idea of what to look for, both on offense and defense, in the middle game (as well as opening and endgame).

The idea behind some endgame study is to have some idea of what to do with any advantage earned in the middle game, how to try and survive a disadvantage, and ultimately how to steer a middle game plus into a won ending.

All three are important.

I really agree with Amnesiac's comments above.

As a beginner I wouldn't worry too much about playing a specific opening. Instead I would learn basic opening principles. These include developing the centre pawns to control the centre of the board; trying to move a piece once only in the opening; developing knights and bishgops before the queen (and usually knights before bishops); castling to get te king safe; trying not to move the pawns forward on the side where the king will castle. If you think in this way you should be able to play almost any opening in a naturalistic - classical - way.

For beginners most games are not lost because of the opening; most games are lost because beginners don't notice that their opnent is threatening to take a piece or miscalculate fairly simple combinations and end up losing a piece of worse.

So my advice would be:

1. Learn the basic principles of opening play and try to use them in games.

2. Focus and concentrate. Before you move check that your opponent is not threatening to take a piece; try to think what the opponent's next move would me if you play the moveyou are intending (would you have a good reply?).

3. Read some books where annotated games are listed. Play through these games and try to understand - with the aid of the annotations - why particular moves were played. Obviously you need to get the right level of analysis here (a book intended for Master-level readers won't help much).

4. Replay your own games (this is easy on chess.com since they are automatically recorded). If you lost, try to understand which moves you mae led to problems. Think about where you coud have made a better move.

5. Once you have this under you belt and a good grasp of basic tactical ideas, try using Tactics Trainer on chess.com to hone and perfect your tactical and combinational skills.

Only when you have all this sorted and you are not going to lose pieces hanging, move the queen 5 times in the first 7 moves, miss obvious tactical idaes etc ... only then, is it worth thinbking about which openings may be good for you. Then you can pick a few openings and try to understand who all those ideas you have learned (such as piece development, tempo, pins, forks, etc) are implemented in an opening such Ruy Lopez. Too many people start playing chess and want to start playing some obscure line of the Sicillian before they have all the basic skills because they think it will give them advantage. It won't.

So my advice is focus on basic skills.

I would recommend picking up the Colle [either Colle, the Colle-Koltanowski or Colle-Zukertort] and playing it.

Keep in mind that this does not also stop you from taking the advice given above. Instead of thinking of the Colle as "an opening you can play against anything," actually learn a bit [just a bit] of its theory, and when your opponent does not play something normal, then you start applying those "general opening principles" the posters above have described.

Since you will likely be playing people who do not know much theory themselves, you'll find you get to play your own moves rather often.

Precisely.

It doesn't hurt to try for familiar ground if it's reasonable ground. If the only position familiar to you is the one before the first move, the whole game is a mystery. It makes it a little harder (though not impossible) to learn because everything is always new and the connections on which the brain thrives are less readily apparent.

Those of us advocating a little opening study are doing so as a way of reinforcing the "general opening principles" with a demonstration of those principles in action. With time, it will become more clear through actual experience why those principles are so important.

People often discuss strategy and tactics. Strategy without the tactical ability to implement it won't get you far. Tactics without even a little strategy isn't much better.

Hey i am a Beginner and really started liking Chess now!!

Hey, as a fellow beginner, let me share my experience dabbling in openings...

I dabbled around with a bunch of things. I finally decided to use simple openings (Vienna, Stonewall for white, e5, Stonewall for black.)

The first place to start is "What kind of game do you want?" As a beginner, you probably want an open, tactical game, rather than a closed, positional one. If this sounds like you, check out the Scotch or the Vienna as white. For black, 1. e5 is the most open and tactical. I picked the Dutch Stonewall for 1.d4 as it is easy to learn, solid, and enjoyable.

But bottom line, dabble around a little, figure out what you like and why, then solidify your selections.

Good luck!

How in the world can you recomend this to a beginner? There is no way they could understand the strategic ideas of those (which is important for those types of openings) especially before learning e4 e5 which shows the importance of the center. You have to understand this before going hypermodern like that. The hippo isn't really even sound and it would greatly confuse the beginner. Don't confuse the lazy though good amateur with the beginner. I actually do play the KIA once in a while but I don't like it any more because black can always play for a draw by playing ...e5 and ...d5 but not also ...c5 and then playing ...dxe4, often wih a roughly equal game but extremely drawish one. Unlike the french exchange, it really is very difficult to generate winning chances against that.

Beginners should stick to basic principles. Open with a pawn in the center. Develop knights and bishops quickly. Castle early. Don't make a lot of pawn moves before you are fully developed. Don't use a single piece (like the Queen) to attack; have your pieces work together.

The problem with studying openings as a beginner is that many of them break the basic principles. Once you thoroughly know the rules and the reasons behind them through personal experience, you will have a good idea of when to break (or at least bend) them.

This except from a very old book by Frank Marshall and J.C.H. Macbeth will point you in the right direction.

Just don't do these two openings

Amnesiac's and Corum's pieces of advice are excellent !

There is a bunch of good opening principles on that page.