The clue is in the title - what is your favourite opening, and why! This can be for white or for black.

The Sam Opening!!!

e4 c5 f4 (anything except c4) Bd3!?!

I could show you some detailed lines I invented if you private message me :)

Hi Samsch!

That's an interesting opening, I'm guessing you called it the Sam opening because you created it yourself

So why is it your favourite opening? Is it the position it gives you, or is it fun to play etc?

And what is everybody else's favourite openings and why!

King's-Indian Defense a more solid position for Black

It's so aggresive if you play it correctly. Idea is c3, followed by e5 at some point with very active bishops and AMAZING pawn-center.

My favourite opening has to be the sicilian dragon, because it usually gives great open games with attacks for both sides, and you have to play very sharply - I love to play attacking games.

What about your d-pawn? Does it not take you a while to play Bd3, c3, & Bc2 in order to get it moving? PM the lines you have, if you would be so kind! I'm interested as to how you'd handle ideas such as an early d5.

I personally like Sicilian and King's Gambit Accepted positions, as they're sharp, challenging, and fun! Tactics everywhere; potential for powerful sacrifices... I've also grown a fondness of the Old Indian recently, as I've had some good results with it; I've got a decent understanding of the opening, its ideas, etc, and I find it fairly flexible. Less so than the KID maybe, but with less theory involved.

Yeah, I find it is always nice to play a sharp, challenging opening, because they just have great potential to give you a fun game to play, as well as tactical opportunities.

I also like the Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik attack, because it is fun to play, gives open positions, and usually the positions get kinda crazy and challenging to play too!

nothing like a good ruy lopez

I like the french defense steinitz variation.

The scotch

g something

The Polish Opening - Bugayev Attack, just because so few people play it. It would almost certainly surprise the opponent! It's also fun to play; I get to have a bishop pair together on the b-file eventually - suits my attacking style.

Ponziani

All of those openings are pretty cool in some way or another - very interesting how most of them involve 1.e4! Is there a reason for this, and do any more people have any favourite openings that arise from something other than 1.e4?

 Parham and Latvian

The Benoni or Najdorf.