My Chess Openings Tour

I’ve performed a “Chess Opening Tour” from March 2023 to June 2023. As a beginner in Chess, I wanted to build a little repertoire in openings to at least know how to start a chess game in a comfortable way.

The idea was to practice a single opening per week, alternating one week with an opening for whites and one week with an opening for blacks. I’ve asked ChatGPT to build an openings list for me to follow (one for whites, and another for blacks).

After some adjustments that occurred even during the tour, the final list for whites were:

• Italian Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4)
• Reti Opening (1.Nf3)
• Catalan Opening (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3)
• Scotch Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4)
• Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3)
• Bird Opening (1.f4)
• English opening (1.c4)
• Ponziani Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3)

The list for Blacks were:

• French Defense (1.e4 e6)
• Caro-Kann Defense (1.e4 c6)
• Alekhine Defense (1.e4 Nf6)
• Modern Defense (1.e4 g6)
• Pirc Defense (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6)
• King's Indian Defense (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2)
• Grunfeld Defense (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5)
• Nimzo-Indian Defense (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4)

Here are my impressions for white openings:

Scotch, English and Ponziani are awful. Run away from them, with except of the Ponziani, which may match some game style and provide many advantages. Italian and Vienna, on the other hand, are the best for King’s Pawn players. Vienna is somewhat “safer” than Italian. Reti and Catalan are very good too, however they “involve gambiting”, so some care must be taken. Despite that, it is worth using them in some games (Ding Liren, 2023 world champion, used the Reti in one of the matches of the 2023 World Championship). Despite all of that, my pick for my setup was the Bird. I’ve found it somewhat “mystical” and interesting of playing, and felt very comfortable with it (though it is not recommended for beginners, breaks some basic and important chess advices, and have some perils to be watched for).

Regarding blacks, here are my impressions:

French and Caro-Kann, in the day of the day, are quite interesting openings to play with, however are still “too advanced” for a beginner to use them. I didn’t feel “comfortable enough” to use them (besides, actually, I was somewhat “bored” of King/Queen’s pawn openings). Strangely, Alekhine’s was the first defense that brought me some comfort. Starting from Modern Defense, all the defense share the same starting pattern (roughly speaking). I had a good match with the idea of fianchetto, but I didn't like very much the idea of putting the knight in front of the bishop. Modern Defense brought me the same “mystical feeling” of Bird’s, however the Nimzoindian was the one that made me feel most comfortable. Grunfeld is awful, I don’t recommend them for anyone. In the end of the day, my picks were Modern defense against King’s pawn and Nimzo-Indian against Queen’s Pawn.

I’ve found very nice the experience of doing such “chess openings tour” because it helped me to find my “own identity and style” in playing chess, as well as “north” on how to start a chess game. Such things, in my opinion, are very important for beginners, because they provide a “starting point” on how to play, what to improve in etc. This tour was also an opportunity for me to learn some lessons and principles on how to play chess and how to “blunder less”.