Choosing E4 or D4

Whenever I play in tournaments I find myself choosing E4 and being conservative and whenever I'm playing with friends or for fun i play agressivly and play D4 leading into the Queens Gambit. Id like to hear your opinions, what do you think is better?

e4 and Kings gambit can be aggressive and fun for club players.  If you are able to memorize multiple openings, play as much variety as you can just to make the game interesting to yourself.   What I have found is that I should always play the same, whether for fun, for speed or for deep analysis.  What you know best will work best for you.

Hey pfargen - What opening do you do then?

I think e4 is better.

1.d4.

So what do you play?

if i want to lose i play e4 and if i don't want to win i play d4

I prefer 1.d4 because you get more variety wheras 1.e4 forces you to be a king hunter. Sometimes you can be a king hunter after d4, such as in Benoni or Grunfeld, but you also have to learn about Kingside defence (KID), the minority attack (Queen's gambit), playing with the two Bishops (Nimzo) or using holes in the opponent's structure (Stonewall Dutch). I prefer my tournaments to have a lot of variety.

 1.e4 hardly forces you into a kinghunt thats a ridiculous analysis.

1.e4 is reccomended for beginners because there alot of simple structures that arise especially from 1.e4 e5 openings which are very common at lower levels this is not to say that e4 openings are less complex then d4 but they are definatley easier to learn at first.

1.e4 when playing it you will most likely know where you lost but with closed positions that often arise from 1.d4 games you will find yourself getting beaten because of subtle reasons.

oh and i play both depending on my opponant.

1.d4 appeals to me more because of my positional style. An opening slip after d4 usually doesn't cost you the game, and there is less memorization to do and more of the game to play. 1.d4 is also a good line for solid middlegame positions.

Once in a while, I do admit I like to play 1.e4 to catch my opponent off guard, but 1.d4 is the best move to me.

However, my advice isn't gold on this subject. I like playing Black better, so I'm more inclined to review defences than openings. Good luck with whatever line you choose!

1.d4 is more positional and safer. However if it's the world championships and you're half a point behind with 1 round to go and you need to play for the win, e4 is the way to go(not that that will ever happen to any of us)

Several world champions played both 1 e4 and 1 d4 in their careers, Kasparov, Karpov, Spassky, Tal to name 4 . Its interesting to see with which they did better.

1. d4

My reasons can be found in the millions of other topics that have a similar title.

On odd # days I play 1 e4 and on even # days I play 1 d4.

its your choose

i prefer e4