What are the best/essential chess openings for a beginner to learn?

Before anything else, I will tell you that a developing player should not focus his/her study on openings. What is the use of opening, if you don't know what to do next. What is the use of opening if you will blunder a piece. What is the use of opening if you can't convert in to a win a winning endgame position. A developing player should focus more his/her study on endgames, tactics and positional play. Buy a chess book. Play Winning Chess and Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan are good one. As white I suggest you develop your bishop on c4 and use the petroff defense as black against 1.e4. Use slav against 1.d4. Italian game. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 Two Knights 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 Petrof defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 Slav defense 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6

your asking for WAYYYYYY tooooooo much information !! get this book : author : yasser seirawan title : winning chess, openings

First I will try to give you a direct answer to your question, then try to explain why I think you are asking the wrong question. Answer: A beginner could benefit by becoming familiar with a main line variation of: The Ruy Lopez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruy_Lopez The Sicilian Dragon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian,_Dragon,_Yugoslav_attack,_9.Bc4#The_Main_Line The Queen's Gambit Declined. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Gambit_Declined But that is only the beginning. There are at least three problems with the idea that learning the moves to these openings, or any other, is going to see you through most games, or for that matter, any games. First, every opening, including these three, has too many variations for a beginner or even an advanced intermediate to memorize. Masters can do it. You can't. Second, even if you did memorize an opening, and 10 or 15 variations of it, few opponents will let you play the standard book moves all the way through, because they will get out of the book quickly. Lower rated players because they don't have everything memorized; higher rated players because they are not interest in letting you play standard moves and thereby keep even with them for 10 or 15 moves. So both lower and higher rated players will be playing non-standard moves and you need to know what to do when that happens. Third, in nearly every case no single player gets to choose the opening. For example if white begins with e4; Black may respond with e5 or c4, but Black can also logically respond with e6 the French Defense, c6 the Caro-Kann, and many others. The same is true for virtually any other opening you try to force upon your opponent. In fact the opening is selected by the choices of both players. So the answer is not learning particular openings. The solution is to learn the principles of playing openings. The book recommended by Mark is a good one for this, and here are some articles on the web by a well known teacher that will also be helpful. Opening Principles http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman53.pdf Learning Opening Lines and Ideas http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman37.pdf The Most Common Opening Tactics http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman07.pdf The Most Common Opening Inaccuracies http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman62.pdf Openings vs Opening Systems http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman105.pdf Here is a good collection for much more advanced players-assembled by Grand Master Jeremy Silman http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_openings/openings.html And finally, study tactics more than you study openings! That is where you will win the game.

the ruy lopez opening, the four knights game, sicilian. there's thousands of them. go buy a beginners chess book and study the openings with a board in front of you.

First, 50 games is clearly in the realm of a rank beginner. Any openings you choose should focus on some basic principles, like: 1. Move a pawn 2. Develop a couple of pieces 3. Castle Bobby Fisher was known for his P-K4 (or e4) openings. These are great because you need only move 2 pieces and then Castle. Personally, before delving into openings, I'd get a good book for a beginner. Here is one I recommend: Chess for Everyone: A Complete Guide for the Beginner by Robert M. Snyder (Nov 13, 2008) Another that I love (I grew up with the 1960 edition), if you can find it is: Chess Made Simple by Sam Sloan (Mar 10, 2009) Though this one is a bit more advanced. Finally, the WORST thing you could do is learn the Scholar's mate (1. e4, 2. Bc4, 3. Qf3 and 4. Qxf7 mate, and then play for it every time. That's because it gets away from teaching all the best principles of openings, like developing pieces, castling, control of the center, among others. I firmly advocate learning opening traps only after establishing a decent foundation of chess study.