Good first move

[Mirela]

I am a new player, what would be a good first move for a white player, please?

[Tm]

E4 is the best IMO!

[Sashenka]

Depends on what you're comfortable with and what you know well. Usually e4 is good because it's what most people learn first.

[petejwatts]

I suggest you look at my posts in the "Rapid Chess Improvement" thread under "Everything Else". Beginners should always concentrate on improving tjeir Black game first - it automatically improves their White game, but the reverse is not true. White usually opens d4 or e4 so you need a response that you can play to either of these. If you learn one of these openings, then you can play it with White with a move in hand. If you want to play one of the traditional d4 or e4 openings, which you play should be determined by what kind of middle game you prefer. e4 tends to produce open positions with active pieces, whereas d4 tends to produce more closed ones with locked pawn chains. Novices are often encouraged to play closed games, but most are temperamentally more suited to open ones. e4 is often preferred as it is traditionally more aggressive, and was famously advocated by Bobby Fischer. Novices are not Bobby Fischer, and interestingly the world was stunned in 1972 when Fischer used d4 systems to beat Spassky for the world championship. Fwiw, in master games d4 is slightly more successful than e4. The difference is caused by the fact that e4 does relatively poorly against the Sicilian 1 e4 c5, a very popular defence. This is probably because the Sicilian produces very complex positions where White's slight advantage becomes irrelevant.`Again this hardly matters to novices who should concentrate on their Black game. As e4 is so popular with novices there is a lot to be said for playing d4 or something else as your opponent will see it less often.