Cayden Williams | The Five Chess Openings Worth Learning First

Cayden Williams Roswell

Most beginning chess players make up the first ten moves of every game and wonder why they keep losing in the middle game. Cayden Williams of Roswell has been playing chess for years and will tell you the cure is shorter than people expect. Pick five openings. Learn the first six or seven moves. The rest of the game starts making more sense almost immediately.

He has favorites. Here they are.

The Italian Game

The most popular opening at the casual level. White plays e4, then Nf3, then Bc4, aiming the bishop at the f7 square and threatening quick development. Black usually responds symmetrically with e5, Nc6, and Bc5.

The Italian teaches good development habits. Knights before bishops. Center control before flank attacks. Castle early. Almost every principle a beginner needs to learn shows up in the first ten moves of an Italian Game.

If you are going to learn one opening as White, this is the one.

The Sicilian Defense

Black's most aggressive answer to e4. The move c5 immediately signals that the game is not going to be quiet. Williams will tell you the Sicilian is the opening with the deepest theory in chess and also the opening with the highest ceiling for Black.

The trade-off is the volume of preparation required. You can spend years studying Sicilian lines and still get surprised. Beginners should start with simpler variations like the Sicilian Dragon or Accelerated Dragon. The pawn structures are easier to learn.

The Najdorf and the Sveshnikov are for later. Start with what you can remember under pressure.

The Queen's Gambit

The opening that became a household name after Netflix made a show about it. White plays d4, then c4, offering a pawn that Black usually declines. The result is a long, strategic game with both sides building positions before the fighting starts.

If your temperament is patient, the Queen's Gambit is built for you. The middlegames are positional. The endgames are technical. The wins come from outplaying your opponent across the board, not from a single tactical strike.

Williams uses it when he wants a slow grind against a tactical player.

The French Defense

Black answers e4 with e6, planning d5 next. The French is famous for closed positions where pawn chains lock the center and the action moves to the wings.

The French is not a beginner favorite at first. The positions feel cramped. Black's light-squared bishop has nowhere good to go. New players often quit on it before they understand what it is doing.

Stay with it. Once you learn the French structures, you start winning games against opponents who are uncomfortable in closed positions. That is most opponents at the club level.

The London System

The opening for players who do not want to memorize endless theory. White sets up the same way against almost everything Black plays. Bishop to f4. Pawns to d4 and e3. Knight to f3. Castle.

The London is sometimes called boring. The reputation is not entirely fair. The opening produces solid, playable middlegames and gives you time to think instead of remember.

If you have ever quit chess because the openings felt impossible to learn, the London is your way back in. Cayden Williams of Roswell, also known as C.J. Williams, recommends it to almost everyone he knows who has bounced off the game before.

The opening is just the warm-up

The point of opening study is not to memorize twenty moves and play them on autopilot. The point is to understand the kind of middlegame each opening leads to. When the theory runs out, you should know what your pieces are supposed to do.

A player who understands the spirit of an opening will outplay a player who has memorized the moves but does not know why. That is the whole game in one sentence.

Pick five. Learn them. Show up at a chess club. The improvement curve is faster than people think.