And sometimes c4 just doesn't leads to d4 positions:
What is the advantage of playing c4 over d4
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There are a lot more replies to d4 than to c4.
With c4 you can respond with the same first few moves to almost all of black's replies as well so I feel it is easier to prepare c4 as an opening choice.
There are people who say otherwise (and I believe the study plans on here suggest not using c4 as your first opening but I think they view it from doing a perfect transition into all the replies where as you definetly don't have to play that way and even Dzindzichashvili has a DvD out there on how the English is an easy opening to learn) because of the transpositional nature of it, but I like the English myself.
I played 1.c4 2.Nc3 3.e3 for as long as I could remember, but I found myself in the same problem as you. After my hiatus from chess I found myself "losing" the opening too often using it, and d4 was much easier to manage. As you most likely already know, the english can lead to anything from the queens gambit to the reversed sicilian, while 1.d4 2.Nc3 really faces the same responses every game, QGD, slav, king's indian, nimzo indian.
GainCity wrote:
I played 1.c4 2.Nc3 3.e3 for as long as I could remember, but I found myself in the same problem as you. After my hiatus from chess I found myself "losing" the opening too often using it, and d4 was much easier to manage. As you most likely already know, the english can lead to anything from the queens gambit to the reversed sicilian, while 1.d4 2.Nc3 really faces the same responses every game, QGD, slav, king's indian, nimzo indian.
Playing e3 as your third move is a bit strange there. Typically g3 would be next followed by the bishop to g2.
Although there is nothing wrong with Nc3 as move 2 (and is the most popular move) I play 2 g3 as my next move the majority of the time.
3.e3 was strange, but I liked the proposition of a large pawn centre, it may not have been completely sound but it was my own creation that I spent 100's of hours developing theory for.
I have been a lifetime devotee of e4. and it's only now I've been trying d4 alot.I know c4 has transpositional value.But what exactly are you avoiding in c4?I think d4 is more straightforward and practical as in c4 you muddy the waters even more as you will face more black replies like a reverse sicilian or a hedgehog.Am I missing something here?