an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 06/15/20 at 02:00:32:

That last point is true and very funny. Anyway, we disagree, and though I have my point of view, I don't believe in laying down dogma on how one must teach and learn. It's too individual and too much more art than science, pace Markovich.

I'm with Monocle's first take on this. I would like to add that, while the student might like it if the teacher answered his question about what to play after 1.e4 e6, that doesn't mean the teacher would be instructing him well. Give a man an opening move and you feed him for a day; teach him to evaluate opening moves and you feed him for a lifetime; keep giving him opening moves and you turn him into a fish. 

The students love it—they’re being spared the trouble of thinking, learning official secrets with arcane vocabulary, acquiring tools with which to pretend they’re more advanced than they are, assuaging a misplaced fear of opening preparation (even while they feed it), acquiring a deceptive sense of control, learning traps which will win them some automated games while maintaining an air of sophistication, and diverting themselves with the fantasy of constructing an airtight repertoire.

With my students I make such questions into an exercise or discussion of opening principles and of what passes for tactics at that level, i.e. noticing threats and keeping track of material. I prepared this material before TopNotch's post on the Socratic method, but I couldn't agree more. Through the Socratic method, you can teach him to think out opening issues for himself.

If a student asks me “what should I do against the French,” I might ask him the question back. If his natural reaction is to play 1.e4 e6 is 2.Nf3 because he plays 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, it is time to discuss what 1...e5 and 2.Nf3 actually do in the open games. He needs to know that one of White's major goals in 1.e4 openings is to achieve d4 without paying a high price. 1...e5 not only occupies a central square; it discourages 2.d4 because of 2...exd4 Qxd4 3.Nc6 gaining time. In other words, White has a small strategic threat after 1.e4, and according to classical principles (which are by far the easiest to grasp and apply), when White is allowed to carry it out and attain a major opening goal without being punished, he can bet he may do so immediately (unless he can win material). --Now the student can figure out for himself what is a good move at move 2 in the French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, Modern, Polish, and so on. 

Next, after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, I might propose 2.Nf3 and see what he thinks. The symmetrical-looking structure after 1.e4 e6 2.d3 d5 is visually quite stable; many students are shocked when Black plays dxe4. (This is a “tactic” at 1100. How silly opening preparation looks in light of this, the true face of the difficulty!) So now we can discuss ways to prevent that threat. Let’s ask him for a list of moves that do that (another useful exercise: think of all the ways to meet or ignore a threat): 3.e5, 3.dxe5, 3.f3, 3.Nc3, 3.Nd2, 3.Bd3, 3.Qe2, 3.Qd3, 3.Qf3, Qg4. 3.exd5 trades a pawn on the 4th for a pawn on the 3rd and makes an exchange without a good reason, 3.e5 moves a piece twice, and 3.f3...well, you know. Throw these out for now because, while they might turn out ok, you can bank that it is good to develop a piece while meeting a threat and one can do that here. --Now he knows something that will guide him in many more situations.   Queen moves are generally undesirable this early unless they win material and are more likely to count as un-developent than as development. 3.Nd2 blocks in a bishop, and 3.Bd3 moves the bishop where it is currently blocked.  It is not good to get used to playing passive or self-blocking moves. So 3.Nc3 is most normal here. Some of the  other moves are just as good, but harder to understand. Maybe later I can recommend 4.exd5, explaining that 4.e5 is a little stronger, but difficult to handle and learn with.

A player who has been taught to think for himself in this way and who gets all his pieces activated before moving anything twice, who makes a minimum of pawn moves except when the center is offered for free, and who does so without losing material or ceding his opponent total central control, will often beat others with more opening preparation and even come out better at the end of the opening stage.

A matter of survival? It feels like that-- it feels worse to lose to an opening trap than to play the opening by book and then blow the game with a later “counting” error. It’s demoralizing to lose to a book move. You feel outclassed and sucker-punched, defenseless, like you can't survive out there; whereas when you lose in the latter way, you get to tell yourself you played well, tried to execute your plan, then made a mistake. Yet you can’t learn without losing many, many games. So it’s OK if a student loses to opening preparation sometimes if he wins much more by using his acquired skills in thinking on his feet. After the student has lost (or not!) to an opening line, you can discuss that line.

There are a lot of good ways to teach, and it will not harm students to have some opening preparation. If an adult student values  opening knowledge for its own sake, fine. But at this level I don't believe it will help him, even if he thinks it does.

 

Whatever opening you choose for the student, provide at least 10 illustrative games, only then start answering questions. You should also ask the student questions like what does 3.Bb5 in the Ruy actually threaten, and take cues from his answer. The socratic method of teaching can be effective in chess when conducted properly.

Yes, I would agree with a ...Bc5 line versus the Lopez. I had something similar in mind.

I'd also advocate against the Steinitz (despite my own interest in it, my love of Keres' games, and having played  it)

There are several such that might be suitable, where black gets his lumps out:

Bc5
Nf6 & Bc5
a6, Bc5 (Moller)

And, like MNb, I somewhat follow the Markovich approach of Tarrasch easy development.

Yes, it is a reasonable question.

One answer might be 3.Nc3. 
if Bb4, then play Nge2. Or take on d5.
If Nf6, play Bg5. And play.

4.Qd3 works very well actually. Yes, queen is out (against 'rules', huh, but is very active, so that's fine), but dxe4 follows inevitably, then white gets bits out to obvious squares: Nf3, Bd3, Q is on h4, Bg5 etc.

That's enough for starters. It's easy to follow, it's clear. And it is open chess.

Or, favoured by several here over the years:

exd5, Nf3, c4 - indeed recently suggested in 'Keep it Simple 1.e4'

BadDays wrote on 06/12/20 at 22:07:42:


You are right I should not have said ludicrous, I should have found an even stronger term. Kidding aside at the 1200 - 1400 range nailing down fundamentals is much more important than an opening repertoire, a firm grasp of sound opening principles along with playing through well annotated (with prose as well as lines) complete games is important so as to see how advantages are converted or bad opening play punished and so on as opposed to a +/= or -/+ at the end of an opening line. At 1200 - 1400 level a most important skill to learn is 'Counting' which is essentially how not lose material when the pieces come into contact, for example:  1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.Bg5 Bg4 This loses material and an expert level player will immediately spot this, but for lower levels it is not easy at all. The technique is known as 'Counting', that is count the number of pieces you are capturing and then count the number of pieces your opponent is capturing. In this example White is capturing the Knight, Queen and Bishop while Black is only capturing the Queen and Bishop. So at the end of this exchange sequence Black loses a piece. 6.Bxf6! At the 1200-1400 range such opportunities are often presented and often missed. The thinking  usually goes something like this, oh no! he's attacking my queen I gotta move it etc, etc. [6.Qxg4 Another common mistake at lower levels is trying to look flashy but in fact when you 'count' you will see that White captures Bishop and Queen while Black also captures Bishop and Queen, hence this operation has only lead to an equal exchange of pieces. 6...Nxg4 7.Bxd8 Nxd8] 6...Bxd1 7.Bxd8 Kxd8 8.Kxd1

To be clear my reply to your original post was not necessarily meant for your eyes only nor to convince you, but to share my thoughts with all those at that level genuinely seeking a reliable method to improve. As far as I am concerned any sensible opening or openings would suffice for your student but it does little to fix the underlying problem of improving your level. 

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 06/13/20 at 05:52:26:


6...Bd6 is still played occasionally by modern GMs at the 2600+ level, and if 2600 GMs are prepared to play something against other 2600 GMs at classical time controls, it can't be that dodgy.  

Of course, by that logic you can also play stuff like 3...Nd4 or 3...f5 in the Ruy Lopez.