Top 3 Openings for a beginner?

What would your top 3 openings be for a low ranked beginner? Why?

I've been working on the King's Indian with varying success. I'm trying to decide if I just need more study on it or would other openings be better suited to work on for my level?

Thanks for any and all advice :)

All you need are Opening Principles:

1. Control the center.

2. Develop towards the center.

3. Castle.

4. Connect your rooks.

The KID is wayyyy beyond your ability right now.  

Good Luck.

the Italian!

For someone seeking help with choosing openings, I usually bring up Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014).

http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html

I believe that it is possible to see a fair portion of the beginning of Tamburro's book by going to the Mongoose Press site.

https://www.mongoosepress.com/excerpts/OpeningsForAmateurs%20sample.pdf

Perhaps CKosciuszko would also want to look at Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006).

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

"Each player should choose an opening that attracts him. Some players are looking for a gambit as White, others for Black gambits. Many players that are starting out (or have bad memories) want to avoid mainstream systems, others want dynamic openings, and others want calm positional pathways. It’s all about personal taste and personal need.

For example, if you feel you’re poor at tactics you can choose a quiet positional opening (trying to hide from your weakness and just play chess), or seek more dynamic openings that engender lots of tactics and sacrifices (this might lead to more losses but, over time, will improve your tactical skills and make you stronger)." - IM Jeremy Silman (January 28, 2016)

Also, perhaps look at:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/picking-the-correct-opening-repertoire

http://chess-teacher.com/best-chess-openings/

https://www.chess.com/blog/TigerLilov/build-your-opening-repertoire

https://www.chess.com/blog/CraiggoryC/how-to-build-an-opening-repertoire

The KID is wayyy beyond anyones' ability.

Unless youre Naka :-)

Not even engines understand the positions, and because Komodo crushed Nakamura I dont think someone understands the KID fully.

You should give more credit to Radjabov tho.

I cant give credit to anyone that wears a striped blue shirt as often as he does.

 

You should be starting with Opening Concepts, not opening theory.  Control the Center, develop minor pieces first, not the Queen, castle to safety, etc.

 

When you reach about 1700 or so, the first two openings you should learn to play both as Black and as White are the Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit Declined.  They are two of the simplest openings to understand.  I emphasize, understand, not master.  You don't need to master any openings when facing 1700 players.  Both follow the general opening concepts to the letter, unlike others that violate those general principles, like the Scandinavian Defense (Black develops his Queen early, as in move two), King's Indian Defense (Surrenders the center immediately), or Alekhine's Defense (moving a piece a bajillion times in the opening basically in this case because you are forced to!

I am not telling anyone to study this openings if they are low ranked begginers, I suggest to learn the first 2 or 3 moves and then use opening principles. The kings gambit, Italian game and Ruy Lopez are the best for begginers imo. I started with the Kings gambit, learned a lot about tactics and common motifs.

The endings are far more complicated than you think, apart the basic endings. The King's gambit on the other hand is definitely not for beginners. Things like the Ruy Lopez, the Italian game, the Scotch gambit, the Belgrade gambit, the Evans gambit, the Two Knights in the Italian game and the Bishop's opening definitely are.

The point I was trying to make is that they will learn some basic endings, and even some advanced endings, but not without some basic opening knowledge. They will be crashed before reaching any endgame, and hence developing some basic tactical skills and vital opening insights, especially of some bizarre and uncommon lines is a good idea.

The Italian Game for White is a great opening for beginners.  The ideas and the moves are simple to learn but from there you can branch out in all directions, learn a lot of critical opening themes and ideas.  If you want to work on attacking and give the Evans Gambit a shot, if you want to just get out of the opening in one piece, play the regular Gioucco Piano.  That will allow you to focus on other aspects of your game while still getting playable positions from the opening.   I don't really have good suggestions for Black because anything you'll need to invest a good bit more time studying the openings as Black than as White (you have more to be prepared against) but the carro-kan should be a good starting point against e4, just remember whatever you do, don't play passively.  Against d4 I would suggest playing the Benoni Defense or the Benko Gambit both openings have fairly straight forward plans.  Remember as a beginner though to just learn the basic concepts and then wok on tactics and, as mentioned, endgames.  Good middle game resources are: How to beat your dad at chess, winning chess tactics for juniors, and chess.com's tactics trainer.  When your rating in slower time control games gets to 1200-1300, you'll be ready to start getting into deeper plans, Find the right plan with anatoly karpov is a great way to get started there.  Great resources for endgames are pandolfini's endgame course, Silman's complete endgame course, whatever resources chess.com offers, and youtube.  As a side note, when I was learning the basics, I had chessmaster 10th edition on cds for my computor, it had a great learning features, especially for the basics.  If you can find that and get it to work on something then you'll be in great shape.  Any who, best of luck to you!

Italian game and scotch

Four knights, king's gambit, Italian opening

It really depends on your style. In the beginning you should focus on several main things: 

1. Develop.

2. Develop towards the center.

3. Don't bring out your queen too early.

4. Get your king safe (castle) before move seven.

 

The first openings I became familiar with were the Ruy Lopez and the Italian Game. Against d4 I played the Slav for a while until I started to become more familiar with the Indian defenses.

If you plan to learn some openings, stick to classical openings like the Italian or Ruy Lopez, Queens Gambit, ect. For black play 1. E5 against e4 and d5 against d4. Learn openings as you play games, after each game go to an opening database and see who left book first and figure out what move should have been played and why. You'll improve faster if you focus on your tactical awareness and the basic endgame play. Just like math, you need to learn the principles and simple concepts and equations before tackling the more complex. Knowing how to develop pieces quickly and fight for the center and seeing tactics as they come will advance your play far more than knowing opening theory which at your level your opponents will stray from quickly in almost every game.

italian giucio piano, fried liver attack, and ruy lopez.

Thanks everyone for all of the great advice :)