Tag: chess improvement

Last updated: August 30, 2021

The Queen’s Gambit has given rise to a new generation of chess enthusiasts. How to Get Good at Chess, Fast’s traffic quadrupled between October and November 2020, and Lichess traffic jumped 10% in that same span. To all the new and reengaged chess players, welcome!

As part of this surge of interest, many new players have sent me questions and comments on openings. What opening do I choose? Is the reason I lose because I don’t want to memorize as many openings as my opponents? What do you think about [insert opening here]?

Here’s my thesis:

The best opening for rapid chess improvement is the one that gets you to a comfortable middlegame position with as little work as possible¹.

With that in mind, this article lays out specific, concrete openings that I’ve selected for you. They require minimal study, work against a variety of responses from your opponent, and naturally flow to comfortable middlegame positions. These are well-established, sound openings that my students have seen success with, and there are multiple openings you can choose from to suit your own chess preferences and tastes. 

The only prerequisite is that you understand the basic opening principles of developing your pieces, controlling the center, getting your king safe (usually via castling), and connecting the rooks. Chess.com’s interactive primer looks good if you’re not familiar with them or need a refresher. It’s also helpful to be familiar with algebraic chess notation. 

While this post is designed to help you improve without a coach, I’m taking on a few students to coach within this structure to help accelerate their improvement. If that’s something you’re interested in, feel free to reach out to me at gautam[at]gautamnarula.com

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are Amazon affiliate links, meaning I’ll get a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you click the link and end up buying something. Thanks for supporting my work!

Openings for White

In How to Get Good at Chess, Fast, I quickly recommended The London System and moved on without elaborating much further. I’m going to go a little more in-depth about the London here, as well as offer other options (including a 1.e4 option!) for players who don’t enjoy the types of positions that emerge from the London.

Opening for 1. d4 players: The London System or the Colle-Zukertort

The London System features the moves 1. d4, 2. Nf3, 3. Bf4, 4. e3, followed by c3, Bd3, Nbd2 and O-O in the appropriate order depending on the opponent’s moves (Diagram 1). It has been deployed by none other than World Champion Magnus Carlsen! It’s so difficult for Black to stop you from achieving this basic setup that it’s not necessary to write out sample lines like I do for the e4 opening below.

Diagram 1: The ideal London System setup.

A cousin of the London system is the Colle, where the pawn is pushed to e3 before the c1 bishop has moved, blocking it in. The Colle-Zukertort is an improvement on the Colle where that bishop is fianchettoed on the queenside, and can lead to some more interesting positions than the London in my experience (Diagram 2).

Diagram 2: The ideal Colle-Zukertort setup. Notice that compared to the London System, the f4 bishop is now on b2 and the c3 pawn push has been replaced with the b3 pawn push.

One example Colle-Zukertort line:

 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 e6 3.e3 Nf6 4.Bd3 c5 5.b3 Nc6 6.0-0 Bd6 7.Bb2 0-0 

Some ideas for White here: placing a rook on c1 and pushing for central expansion with c2-c4, or placing a knight on e5 followed by a f2-f4 push and a potential kingside attack.

Opening for 1. e4 players: The King’s Indian Attack

1. e4 openings are inherently more difficult to play than d4 openings³, so we’ll have to spend a little more time learning my pick, the King’s Indian Attack (KIA). The KIA has a storied history, with many stunning victories coming from a young Bobby Fischer in the mid-20^th century. It’s basically the King’s Indian Defense (which is, more or less, my recommendation as Black) with colors reversed, and the extra tempo from playing as White gives you the flexibility to play it against just about anything.

The KIA setup involves the moves e4, d3, Nd2, Ngf3, g3, Bg2, and 0-0, typically resulting in the structure in Diagram 3.

Diagram 3: Standard KIA setup.

White’s king is castled and safe, and White exerts control of the center with the two pawns and knights. White’s main plan is a well-timed e4-e5 pawn push, accompanied with gaining space and potentially aiming for a kingside attack (those acquainted with the Closed Sicilian will find these kinds of positions familiar). The main challenge is to figure out how to develop the c1 bishop efficiently.

Below are a few sample lines of what you might face:

1…e5 (King’s Pawn Game)

 1. e4 e5 2. d3 Nc6 3. g3 Bc5 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. Nf3 d6 6. O-O O-O 7. Nbd2 

1…c5 (Sicilian Defense)

 1. e4 c5 2. d3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. Nf3 d6 6. O-O Nf6 7. Nbd2 

1…e6 (French Defense)

 1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. Ngf3 Nc6 5. g3 dxe4 6. dxe4 Bc5 7. Bg2 O-O 8. O-O 

1…c6 (Caro-Kann Defense)

 1. e4 c6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 e5 4. Ngf3 Bd6 5. g3 Nf6 6. Bg2 O-O 7. O-O 

1…d5 (Scandinavian Defense)

The Scandinavian used to be a great surprise opening and rare enough that in years past I wouldn’t have included it here, but thanks to the valiant efforts of IM John Bartholomew and #teamscandi it’s become pretty popular at the amateur level (and I’ve been recommending a Scandi variant to my students for over a decade as well, so naturally my massive influence has popularized it and shifted the frontiers of chess at both the amateur and professional levels). Unfortunately, you can’t go into a standard KIA structure (1. e4 d5 2. d3 dxe4 3.dxe4 Qxe1+ 4. Kxe1 and clearly this is a very different kind of game).

So instead, my suggestion is to exchange the pawns and bring the knight to c3 followed by the KIA style fianchetto.

 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. g3 e5 5. d3 Bf5 6. Bg2 c6 7. Nf3 Nf6 8. O-O Nbd7 

Opening for 1. c4 Players: Read a Book

I said it in How to Get Good at Chess, Fast and I’ll say it again: you’re on your own. Being a hipster has its costs. Truth hurts! I’ve heard good things about Starting Out: The English.

Openings for Black

In How to Get Good at Chess, Fast, for Black I originally recommended a kingside fianchetto setup involving the moves Nf6, g6, d6, Bg7, and O-O (Diagram 4). I have since recanted that recommendation after finding students and friends struggling not to get overrun in the center — conceptually it may be a bit too difficult to play for lower rated players. I offer an alternative option, the Qd6/Qd8 Scandinavian against e4 + the …g6 Slav, for those who prefer to contest for central control right away rather than let White immediately build up a center.

The g6 Slav + Qd6/Qd8 Scandinavian

Some of my student’s have seen great results with kingside fianchetto structures, but I’ll admit these structures can result in games that are a bit intense. This is a quieter alternative that’s still easy to learn and leads to interesting positions.

Against d4, my recommendation is the g6 Slav (my engine tells me this is called the Schlechter Variation), which almost always will go 1…d5 2…c6 3….Nf7 4…g6, typically with …Bg7 and …O-O to follow (Diagram 5)

Diagram 5:  Black’s standard …g6 Slav setup.

One typical variation could go:

 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. e3 Bg7 6. Bd3 O-O 

Another is to exchange the pawns on d5:

 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. cxd5 cxd5 6. Bf4 Bg7 7. e3 O-O 

A variant of this plan is for White is to pressure d5 with Qb3 and Bg5 to force Black to play e6 and lock in the c8 bishop:

 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. Qb3 Bg7 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Bg5 e6 8. e3 O-O 

Black gets a flexible position and, by not committing a pawn to e6 early like in other similar openings (the Semi-Slav, or the French), leaves the possibility open in non-Qb3 variations for developing the c8 bishop to a good square and only then playing e6 to support the d5 focal point in the center. 

Against e4, my recommendation is the Qd6 Scandinavian, which begins with 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd6 (Diagram 6).

Diagram 6: The starting position of the Qd6 Scandinavian

The Qd6 Scandinavian can look a bit… odd if you’ve never seen it before. Black explicitly violates the common opening adage of not developing the queen too early, and the Queen is now perched on this peculiar d6 square. Practice has shown it a flexible and sound opening, and I personally have achieved some pretty incredible results with it, scoring draws or even wins against players rated a few hundred points higher than me in tournament games. It’s easy for White to get too ambitious and overextend themselves trying to push too hard for an attack against this very solid structure.

The plan is simple – if possible, fianchetto on the queenside, develop the pieces, and castle. If left to their own devices, Black’s aims to set up the ideal position in Diagram 7.

Diagram 7: Black’s ideal Qd6 Scandinavian position

Black’s plan is to push for central control with …c5

Here’s an example line:

 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 a6 6. Bc4 b5 7. Bb3 Bb7 8. O-O e6 

White’s most effective idea against this opening is using a kingside fianchetto to neutralize the b7  bishop. In that case, Black aims for this kind of setup, possibly castling queenside to maximize pressure on White’s d4 pawn (Diagram 8).

Diagram 8: Black’s Qd6 Scandinavian setup if White fianchettoes kingside

Here’s a typical line:

 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 a6 6. g3 Bg4  7. Bg2 Nc6 8. O-O O-O-O 

That’s pretty much all you need to know – those two structures and following the opening principles should serve you well in the Qd6 Scandinavian.

One other option is the Qd8 Scandinavian, which at first glance looks even more bizarre: 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8!? (Diagram 9).

At first glance this violates multiple opening principles: we allow our queen to come out, get attacked with tempo, and then immediately return to the starting position. The logic here is that the Queen can be vulnerable to attack on d6 or a5 (the two more common Scandi queen squares) and thus, in a way this is tempo neutral compared to those other lines since white won’t develop with further tempo on the queen. White will get a lead in development, but black challenges that with solid play white won’t be able to take advantage of that in time for black to catch up.

Once again, it’s easy for White to get too ambitious and overextend themselves trying to push too hard for an attack against this very solid structure and I find this personally a bit easier to play than the Qd6 Scandi, although a bit less counterattacking in nature as well.

The main setup we’re going for is pawns on c6 and e6 after developing the light squared bishop to g4 (which we’ll trade for a knight on f3 when provoked, weakening the d4 pawn’s protection), and a bishop on d6 if white castles kingside and b4 if white castles queenside.

Here’s an example of the setup (diagram 10).

Here’s a typical line:

 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bc4 e6  7. h3 Bxf3 8. Qxf3 c6 9. Be3 Nbd7 10. O-O Bd6 11. Rad1 O-O 

Notice how we only commit our dark squared bishop after white decides which way to castle. Similar to the Qd6 Scandi, black is increasing the pressure on d4 and aiming to trade pieces when possible and gain queenside space with moves like …a5 and possibly central counterplay with …c5 or …e5.

So now you’ve got a variety of opening options: the London/Colle-Zuckertort or the King’s Indian Attack as White, and the g6 Slav + Qd6/Qd8 Scandinavian as Black.

Once you’ve picked your openings, play a few slower (G/10 or above, which is “slow” by online standards!) online games to get familiar with the middlegame positions that flow from these openings. Once you’ve got a basic comfort with them, you’re done!

From here on, you can use the incremental opening study approach I recommend in How to Get Good at Chess, Fast: when you analyze your games, quickly determine where you deviated from the book move, figure out what that next book move is and why it’s played, and then continue analyzing the rest of the game. Overtime, your incremental knowledge will accumulate into substantial understanding of that opening without a large upfront time investment.

FAQ

1. Does using opening “systems” hurt chess development in the long run?

This is a criticism I sometimes see online: opening systems, such as the London System, narrow the range of possible middlegames so much that they stunt chess players’ development by not exposing them to a richer set of positional and tactical themes. I think this fear is overblown; I personally know a player who became a master (2200+ USCF) by playing the …g6 Scandinavian as Black and the London System as White by focusing almost exclusively on tactics and very fast calculation. I think the bigger worry is instead the potential boredom that comes from playing a system.

2. Do you play these openings?

I do sometimes play the King’s Indian Attack and the Qd6 Scandinavian, and a somewhat more complicated “system” version of the Slav. When I was rated around 1300 USCF I started studying repertoire books and ended up investing enough time in learning those openings over the years that now it doesn’t really make sense to switch. In hindsight though, yes, I would’ve instead played these and focused more on other parts of the game.

3. How do I pick an opening when I’m ready to “graduate” from these systems?

These openings can carry you a long way – as I mention above, I know people who’ve reached 2000+ USCF playing these openings or similar ones. Nonetheless, if you feel you’re ready for a bit more sophisticated opening study (which I really don’t recommend below 1600 USCF at the very earliest), you’ve got two options:

Study a repertoire book (the easy way)

Repertoire books blend a set of related openings together so that the knowledge you learn from middlegames of one opening transfers to the middlegames of other openings in the repertoire. The openings aren’t necessarily bleeding edge theory, but what you exchange in theoretical optimality you get back many times over in ease of learning.

Repertoire book recommendations:

White:

D4 players: Starting Out 1. d4

E4 players: Attacking with 1. e4

Black:

Chess Openings for Black, Explained

Check the table of contents of a repertoire book before buying to make sure you like the openings it suggests. If you don’t like playing the Sicilian Accelerated Dragon against e4 (which is what one of the books above suggests), then you won’t get much value from the book.

Individually pick and choose openings (the hard, but maybe more fun, way)

So you love openings and are willing to spend lots of time learning them for their own sake, even if it doesn’t increase your rating. What do you do now?

First, you’ll need to research which openings you want to play. When I was a kid, I found Winning Chess Openings to be a good survey of all the opening options out there so I could figure out what I wanted to learn more about.

Then, you need to figure out the best books or courses on that opening to study (if you’re new to the opening entirely, the Starting Out series is a great primer). There are also many good courses on platforms like Chessable, though you’ll need to be a bit discerning here: some are marketed with a lot of hype (the “dynamic” 1. Nc3, really?), while others are at a ridiculously high level (e.g, created by current or former top 10 players and explained at a level that only very strong players can grasp).

Finally, you’ll need to learn how to use a chess database to analyze openings when you inevitably run into a line not covered by your book, or want to learn how games have continued after the line ends in your book. Learning how to use a chess database is far beyond the scope of this article, but to summarize it briefly: you input a position from the opening, filter by games above a certain rating threshold (I recommend 2400), and play through the games (sometimes with an engine) and study the outcomes. You could also filter by game length to find quick wins and losses in the opening to know what traps and mistakes to look out for.

Chessbase 16 is the latest iteration of the database software professional chess players use. You can also use SCID, the open source chess database, if you’re more technically inclined and are willing to invest the time to figure it out (you’ll need to import the actual corpus of games separately). An intermediate option in both price and complexity is to use the database that comes along with chess training software/engines like Fritz 17, which should consist of millions of games. Back in the day, I found the database included with Fritz 10 to be sufficient for my needs.

Footnotes

1. At higher levels this changes to, “The best opening is the one that suits your playing style and fights for an advantage as White and fights for equality as Black.” But for anyone under at least 2000 USCF (if not higher), this definition isn’t the right one.
2. This is the main difference between the KID and KIA – Black can’t really build up a massive center against the KIA because White has the extra tempo.
3. I started out as a 1. e4 player, switched to 1. d4 around the time I hit 1300 USCF, and then experimented with 1. e4 when I reached 1900 USCF while still remaining primarily a 1. d4 player. In my experience, 1. d4 openings are much easier to play because the positions tend to be closed and slower moving, meaning an individual slip up in an opening line doesn’t carry the same consequences as it does in the more tactical and open 1. e4 openings.

For more on chess improvement

How to Get Good at Chess, Fast, Using Data to Improve Your Chess, and The Best Openings for Rapid Chess Improvement are the first in a forthcoming series of articles with a hyperfocus on extracting maximal chess improvement from minimal training effort. In order to keep this personal website from being overrun by chess content (I write about other things too), I’m creating a new website: rapidchessimprovement.com!

Head over there or enter your email below to join the rapid chess improvement email list if you’d like to be notified whenever the next post in this series is available. 

Thanks to William Horton and Aditya Rao for reviewing drafts of this article.