Hundreds, if not thousands, of books have been written on chess openings. In chess, for beginners the natural instinct will be to buy a chess openings book and commit specific openings to memory. When the chess beginner then tries to apply a specific opening in a real chess game they usually become unstuck as their opponent makes a non-book move. It is best to learn good opening principles first this will then allow you to adapt your openings based on your opponents moves.
1. Control the Center
The first principle is to control as much of the center of the chess board as possible. The key squares are d4, d5, e4 and e5. This will occur naturally for white with most openings, the two most common opening moves being the Queens pawn move to d4 or the Kings pawn move to e4.
2. Develop your Pieces
Moving your Queens or Kings pawn first then controls either d5 or e5, it also allows room for movement for the more major pieces. Bringing in to play the second principle of developing your major pieces, starting with your Knights followed by the Bishops. You may need to move another pawn to develop your Bishops fully.
Moving your Knights to either c3 or f3 will help protect your advanced pawn and also control more of the center of the board.
3. Castle Early
You should then Castle as soon as possible, preferably on the Kings side. This helps protect your King from attack and release the Rook into the center.
4. Connect your Rooks
Once you have Castled you should then move the Queen to allow your Rooks to connect and have free movement on the back rank. Move your Queen with caution though, as another principle in the opening is not to over expose your Queen.
5. Build a Solid Structure
Do not be tempted to attack until your pieces have been developed. Your aim in the chess opening is to build a solid structure from which you can then attack your opponent. By following these principles your chess pieces will have more freedom of movement and be less vulnerable to attack.
Once your are comfortable with these ideas you can then learn a chess opening or two and if your opponent does not follow the book moves you can fall back on these principles as a what to do next.
A chess opening I would recommend would be the Scotch Game ECO C44. This is a simple chess opening that leads to an open game. It derives it’s name from a correspondence chess match between Edinburgh and London in 1824. Though not as popular in the modern chess game it is used by chess Grandmasters as a surprise alternative to more common modern chess openings.