Transitioning from e4 to d4
I have always been an aggresive and attacking player. e4 had become a faithful companion of mine. Sure I dabbled in other openings for a little bit, but I always ended up going back to e4. I began playing stronger opponents with e4 and got dissatisfying positions. They constantly played the Sicilian and I had trouble against it. I first played the Open, but in the end it required way to much theory in way too many lines. So, I implemented the English Attack against every Sicilian setup. While it worked against the Najdorf and Dragon, it didn't really work against systems like the Taimanov and Sveshnikov. So I found myself slightly worse in an endgame that they were more familiar with! This was not what I wanted for an opening. I switched to the Grand Prix Attack and did fine unless they refrained from playing g6. Then I was barely fighting for equality and my "assured attack" did not materialize. I was scratching my head for answers.
Then I had a little trouble playing against the French. This was odd to me because the French is my native opening, but I could not get a good position. The Poisoned Pawn Variation lines were outrageous and the Classical had a lot of lines, so I refrained from playing Nc3. I determined that I did not like the positions with the Advance and the Exchange, so I relied heavily on the Tarrasch. The problem with the Tarrasch is that I hated playing against the c5 variation and dreaded playing against the French.
I also realized I was on shaky ground when dealing with the Caro-Kann. I played the mainline Nc3 at first and played the Burris Gambit against the Capablanca Variation. But against 4. Nd7, I could not find a way to get any kind of advantage. So I began to study d4.
At first, my impressions with d4 did not begin well. I was tired of playing against the QGD because Black could get in c5 sooner or later and my center would be demolished. But I discovered the Exchange Variation and my interest soared. I could implement a minority attack and a couple of other ideas at my disposal and get most of the winning chances. After I solved that problem, I quickly went to work on the other variations. I wanted to avoid the Nimzo Indian, so I found some lines of the Queen's Indian to be of my interest. My repertoire quickly formed and now I can play d4 without any hesitation. This can happen to others easily, so I wanted to let people know how to make this transition smoothly.