Chess Openings for Beginners
by Cory Klein
A serviceable starter map of 30 openings, dragged down by sloppy editing.
- Status
- Read · February 2026
- Bought
- February 10, 2026
- For
- Adult beginners learning opening theory · Casual players tired of dying in the first ten moves
The one-paragraph verdict
This does the one thing a beginner opening book has to do: it names the lines you keep walking into and shows you why each move exists, with a diagram per position so you are never lost on the board. The breadth is genuinely useful — 30 openings, each with plain advantages and disadvantages instead of memorization for its own sake. The problem is execution: misspelled names, a few moves written wrong, and notation slips that a beginner cannot catch are exactly the errors that sabotage a beginner. It taught me the ideas, but I cross-checked half of it against a board to trust it.
Who should read it
Adult beginners who keep losing in the opening and want a structured map rather than scattered YouTube clips. It is also fine for a casual player who wants the why behind the Italian or the Sicilian. Skip it if you are already past 1000 rated — there is nothing new for you, and a repertoire book will serve you better.
Where it earned its place
It gave me a habit more than a repertoire: stop memorizing moves, start asking what each one is trying to do to the center. That reframing made the game more fun and far less intimidating, which is the whole point of a hobby shelf.
Skip it if…
Pass if typos and shaky notation will erode your trust faster than the content builds it, or if you want a deep single-opening repertoire rather than a broad survey.
[Chess Openings for Beginners on Goodreads]