King’s pawn openings or Queen’s pawn openings for beginners?
It is my very strong belief that beginners should play King’s pawn openings, in other words, 1.e4 because it is extremely important to familiarise oneself with tactics (Complications and combinations) more likely to arise from this opening because the light squared bishop’s diagonal is opened up ready to target potentially the f7 square next to the enemy’s king. Also, the e4 pawn for example is undefended by the queen making the game more of an exercise in both attacking and defending and of course not being able to ignore the opponent’s move.

With Queen’s pawn openings ie, 1.d4 the d4 pawn is already protected by the queen meaning there is more flexibility with move order, which may seem attractive but with the downside of not being trained to think as much. Also, the pieces eg the queen’s bishop can become more focused towards the c7 square next to the queen, making it a more indirect attack on the king eventually. Such positions of trying to accumulate small advantages are an important skill once the skill of playing tactically has been sufficiently developed from the other opening because it is no good having a positional advantage that you don’t know how to convert because of weak tactics. Tactics can eventually arise from any opening, so it is important to become good at the basics first from the King’s pawn opening.

Besides, Chess tactics are a great deal of fun and this is important for a beginner player with a game full of action, otherwise the game may not appear interesting to them. It is a win-win situation.

My Chess tutoring or coaching should help immensely with this too and if there is a good case for a Queen’s pawn opening instead I would be happy to explore that too.