Pick a opening you like, and then learn the ideas behind it, and then remember a few basic rules.

1. you want to have pawns and pieces in the center or at least controling the center of the board.

2. Generally, move pawns, Knights, and Bishops before rooks and the queen.

3. Try to avoid moving a piece more then once unless your capturing a another pawn or piece.


For example, (this if from a David Levy book) in the early days of computer chess there was a program called "Tech" that was a baseline chess program. The idea was to just look at material (It used a little amount of computer time on positional aspects to be able to search better, but basically, it meant to look at tactics) and in the early days it beat a lot of early programs.

It did not have memorized opening lines, instead it used a simple system similar to what I described above.

it played some nice opening lines just from knowledge. (if someone wants examples i will find the book and type a few out)

seriously, till your 1500 rated or so your better off learning the basic theories and endings then memorizing lines, unless you insist on playing the Dragon...