I used to play e4 when I first started playing chess a few years ago, but now I always play d4
Any GM's or strong players who played D4 more often then E4?
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tlay80 wrote:
Andre_Harding wrote:
You can start with pretty much every member of the Top 10!
Surprisingly, no -- almost the opposite, in fact.
Of the current live top ten, Nepomnichtchi, Caruana , and MVL strongly favor 1. e4.
Historically, Firouzja has too, though he's been mixing it up a bit more recently.
Carlsen, So, Giri, and Nakamura all play both with some regularity, but all four actually have a narrow plurality of 1. e4 games over their careers.
Only two -- Ding and Aronian -- favor d4.
But yes, d4 (or "d4 openings" with a 1. c4 or 1. Nf3 move order) are a bit more common these days at the GM level.
They should lock old threads!!!
Anyway, oddly enough this was actually true when he said it, but by the time you wrote your post 10 years later it wasn't anymore.
In the OLD old days everyone played e4. Playing d4 was considered a bit of an abherration and a slow game hard to analyze so it had little or no theory, the takeover of the queen's gambit hadn't happened. It wasn't until the mid-late 1800s that d4 became a hugely serious threat and built up to the point where players like Alekhine and Capablanca played it in their world championship games.
However around the mid 1900s, incredible discoveries started to be made in terms of the Sicilian, and it was such fun that everyone wanted to play it even the world champions. Fischer was a huge advocate of e4 and Kasparov also had an enormous love for the Sicilian defence, it was e4 taking over. It started to be understood that while d4 might be better theoretically, e4 was better for creating edginess to the game, and that is what white should actually be trying to achieve.
However around the 1990s or 2000s, holes began to be found in the Sicilian that could not be fixed, Fischer had clearly shown the King's Gambit and even the Dragon were not sound at the elite level, but even the Najdorf was starting to be considered shaky and black was forced to stop playing them as much which led to less wild fun for white. On the other hand with e5 and the advent of the notorious Berlin Wall and new solutions in defending with the Petrov, white was having a tough time breaking down black even with e4. What's the point in e4 if it can't force uneven chances and also not fun to play? Fun is an underrated concept for an opening's popularity. So it was back to d4 again and people thought it would stay that way forever.
However in the computer age, many super gms don't play very deep into theory anymore, not because they don't know it but because somewhere along the mainlines they find a way to cause their opponents problems by using a computer. And the first player that veers off the mainline will be on home ground with the little tricks they've prepared. In theory they are worse but in over the board play they win due to learning all the critical branches the computer put out. So d4 vs e4, it doesn't really matter which is theoretically better anymore because everything is about setting traps with the computer.
Tigran Petrosian, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Korchnoi, Akiba Rubinstein.
I try to play everything. You can only completely understand chess if you play everything and your new knowledge will help you in any opening.
in the past i always thought d4 is strategically and e4 is more tactical. but thats actually totally wrong. when you play d4 you need much less opening knowledge because there are much less forcing lines. thats all. in general you can play d4 very aggressive if you want.
you cant study an opening. you wont find good books about it. almost all books are real trash. and in really important subjects its even worse.
opening knowledge is very important but intuition is even more important. with intuition and a good personality you can find unbelievable strong moves. that are objectively the best. sometimes with intuition you can even find better moves than stockfish. its very rare but it can happen.
a hero is just a better player than a gangster. if you are a hero you will find better moves and you will play much better games. if you are modest you will improve. if you are arrogant and think you are perfect you will never improve in anything.
tactic is important too. but its not that important. i would say the most important thing and the most powerful ability in chess is intuition. and you have only intuition if you are connected to your higher self because you are an amazing human. if you are a prick you are not connected with your higher self. if you are coward you will not even try the really good moves.
your personality determines if you have intuition or can develop intuition or not. but of course in this fake world that all doesnt matter. well the opposit is the case if you have a good personality what means that your actually superior you will get automatically a loser in this fake world. the thugs at the top of the pyramide will take care that thats the case.
I do play 1.d4 as my main choice as White. I read some Grandmaster Guide's from Quality Chess that should give you a good foundation. This is the Queen's Gambit study and this is the Indian Defense study. It doesn't cover everything the book goes over but it has almost everything you need for a solid setup. Has some Master Games in there too