Are you 1.e4 or 1.d4?

Why play 1.d4?

I am not a brave hero, I do not have the time to learn a lot of long forcing lines, I do not want to face a stronger opponent and play against his pet Sicilian Dragon, Marshall attack or poison pawn najdorf. I noticed that the strongest lines against several popular defences are too risky for my taste. With 1.e4 you need to take a risky road to win. It seems  that you win in a almost suicidal attack and black has a lot of chances to sharpen the game and make you sweat. I prefer to win by paciently build an strong position and then squeeze le life out of my rival.

Why play 1.e4?

I am a lesser mortal, have to work, like to study endgame theory, like to face strong opponent and say: throw to me your slav or queen indian I am ready for it. Or throw me your sharp benoni or King indian or semislav BUT this time I will choose a positional line that even GM play and It is ME that is going to choose my pet variation.

In other words:
- - You like risk and have time to study and you are brave, choose 1.e4.
- - You are a bit timid, little time to study, choose 1.d4

1.d4.

Comments:

The move 1.d4 is the preferred opening move almost three times more often than 1.e4 in world championships. It reduces the chances of defeat and offers over seven times more possibilities of victory. The number of draws resulting from this move is also significantly smaller, proving that it is actually more offensive that the 1.e4 opening, contrary to common belief.

The last and only victory achieved by playing 1.e4 occurred ten years ago (!) by Peter Leko, a chess player famous for only opening with 1.e4 (he thus knew the resulting positions very well). However, even he abandoned it (before the end of the match) and continued with 1.d4. His case also brings Fischer to mind, who almost exclusively opened with 1.e4 as well. But during his match against Spassky for the world championship two out of his three victories, while playing white, were not achieved by 1.e4.

The last known defeat after playing 1.d4 occurred in the last world championship between Anand and Carlsen. Anand could end the match in a draw, but he needed to win the game and was thus forced to play in a more risky and reckless manner, which resulted in his defeat. Therefore, the real percentage of defeats after using the 1.d4 opening, not counting the one mentioned above, becomes 8%.

Vassily Ivanchuck said that Anand shouldn't waste his white games against Carlsen with 1.e4 but play 1.d4 right away, as in his (Ivanchuck's) opinion this would give Vishy more chances for a win. We think this might well be true, since every time Anand was close to wining a game it had started with 1.d4!

D4 is for the positional players..lake me  with may account ADY125 in play chess I use only D4 with white...

Last edited by ADY125 on Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

I regard d4 as a safe move and e4 as a more enterprising move.

In correspondence I would play e4, c4 and f4 for variety, but never d4.
As Black I hate playing against d4 though.

Neither!     Can you put an Extra Vote box for 1. e3  

1.d4 is better, becouse the pawn is already defended. (B. Spassky).

On Chess.com, I have opened almost exclusively the Reti Opening for the White pieces (it is incredibly flexible for attacking and sacrificing the c4 pawn for then pushing e4 is fun). A queenside blitz attack is also quite imminent.
[fen]rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/2PP4/5NP1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 b kq - 0 6
[/fen]
For the Black pieces, I have grown quite fond of playing the French defense against 1.e4. Not many people seem to be prepared to respond after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5.
[fen]rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/4p3/2ppP3/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 4
[/fen]

b4

Hossam wrote:

b4

Just a bit worse than 1.f4

It also depends a bit where/which type of chess you are playing. If friendly OTB games certain players would use/try out different ideas in openings. Put the same player in a tournament
he/she would pick something different. Playing top correspondence chess is a field on its on and you have to be up on all the latest ideas on openings. I think c4 is growing in the number
of players using it now. I guess also a lot has to do with your own playing style.