The Best 6 Opening Chess Moves

One of the best ways to improve your game is to start at the beginning. Literally, with the very first move. How you start your match can make a difference as to how your game will go or what your strategy will be, as well as those of your opponent.

However, all opening moves were not created equal. While Chess aficionados argue over which openings are the absolute best, there are many that share the top ten lists of a majority of advanced players.

Make sure you are familiar with the letter and number designations of squares on the chessboard to fully understand how each of these moves plays out.

Six Top Opening Moves

Collected here is a sample of some of those well-respected opening moves.

Keep in mind, since the placement of these moves on individual’s hierarchies differ, they will appear here in no particular order. So, without further ado, here are seven top chess openings that can improve your game.

Reti Opening

This opening ploy presents a lot of opportunities for White to be flexible while avoiding a rush to the center of the board, the lack of which can take an opponent by surprise.

At this point, the Reti Opening has formed.

First, you have put the knight in a good square while preventing black from taking the center of the board from the start. This also puts you in a position to Castle quickly.

Now you have set yourself into a position where you can more easily react to a variety of ploys by Black, while often surprising your opponent by not going for the center.

The King’s Pawn Opening

This technique is one of the most aggressive strategies that White possesses.

If you’re up for taking charge and moving forward, this is a well-loved, tried and true method for starting a game offensively.

That’s just a taste to get you started on an aggressive path. Feel free to explore any of these openings that you find interesting in more detail.

Benko’s Gambit

This set-up is a Black opening tactic, so its viability is based on whether White makes a set of opening moves.

In this maneuver, Black takes a risk by offering up one of its pawns in order to open up lines of attack faster.

From this point, White is trying to make use of the pawn advantage.

Black is trying to use the extra open lines to even the playing field while driving forward in an attack to gain the upper hand.

The Queen’s Pawn Opening

This is actually the white technique employed in Benko’s Gambit above.

The Queen’s Pawn opening is one of the most popular white techniques because it is strong and effective at controlling the center.

The light-square bishop can make easy work of this aggressive black pawn, which will find it difficult to escape, and now white has taken control of the center of the board.

The Sicilian Defense

This is a popular Black defense against a common white opening move to take control of the center.

There are four typical variations from here depending on what White decides to do next, but Black has countered the play for center supremacy and has power over the D4 square.

Anderssens’ Opening

If your style is to play the waiting game and engage in psychological warfare, you may enjoy Anderssen’s Opening.

This gambit is not focused on center control, but rather bides time to manipulate Black into a favorable position. It can be used as a counter to the King’s Pawn game with colors reversed.

It also exhibits control over e4 response openings as the ability for Black to put pieces of b5 is curtailed.

This move is perfect if you want to shake up your game and throw something different into the mix, since as white you are not vying for control of the center at first, taking a more defensive position.

Once black reacts, you can turn the tables and prepare defensive moves as if the colors were swapped.

P.S.

The other options are still playable. There are a lot of opening you should pay attention to: English Opening, Indian Defence, etc. But you already have known basics of how to compare and check which opening works for you.