What are some good chess openings?

Play the London system with white. With black play Caro-Kann against 1. e4, play Tarrasch defense against 1. d4, play symmetrical against 1.c4.

Play anything you like. A top player can play any move he likes against lesser players. The sole purpose of a opening, is to reach a playable middle game. The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 named openings and variants Wikipedia: Chess openings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_opening ------------ There are over 288 billion possible positions after 4 moves. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1021587 Lucky for chess players, only a 'few' lines are worth playing.

A strong chess player simply figures out what sorts of positions they understand and play well in, then they try to base their openings around getting to a sort of position like that. Its really not so much the individual openings that matter, but how your entire repitoire compliments itself.

I still like to play the classics: The Ruy Lopez and the Italian. Still haven't been proved wrong. Although that means you need to learn to play against the Sicilian as well, because if you start with 1.e4 as White, you can't preclude 1... c5.

Play 1.d4 d5 2.c4, the queen's gambit, don't forget to solve lots of chess puzzles.

The stonewall, french defense, benko's opening are just a few.

The najdorf opening is always a good one.

Ok, your question is one of the most common questions that is asked to me by my students. What I reccomend is looking at your strengths. People usually can decide if they are tactical or positional players or not. If you think that you are stronger in tactics than positional strength, I suggest you play e4. If you are stronger positionally, then I reccomend d4. Now, for openings in general, as white, I suggest that based on what I said before this, if you are an e4 player, you should play the Ruy Lopez (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5) or the Italian Game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4) Of course it is true that sometimes your opponents will play other things like the sicilian, which I reccomend you learn the smith morra gambit to beat, or the french, which is when you must know how to play the classical and winawer variations. As black, against e4, you should play either c5 if you are tactical (sicilian [especially the dragon or najdorf]) or c6/e6 if you are positional. Against d4, I suggest the budapest, benko gambit, benoni defense, or kings indian defense. All of these are quite good. If you are in a tight spot, and you need a surprise opening, try out the ponziani against higher rated players. It is a great surprise weapon, and I beat a 1990 USCF with it in 18 moves. The line is e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 c3!? Not much is known on it, but if you analyze it, it usually leads to an equal game unless your opponent makes a mistake. I suggest looking it up on youtube for more info. I hope I helped and good luck at your tourney