e4 or d4

c4 was a natural addition to the repertoire after playing d4 for a long time. I stick with the queenside.

E4

@21

"If you were to ask the very best in the world what they thought that'd be more interesting."
++ Do not ask what they say: look what they play.
More 1 e4 than 1 d4, 1 c4, and 1 Nf3 combined.

"we should really be considering club level play."
++ For club level play in classical time control any of the 20 legal first moves is fine.
Even at grandmaster level each of the 20 legal first moves is fine in rapid and blitz.
Even at IM level: British Championship
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1026331

This claim is just false according to the masters database.
masters data since 2020:
e4: 46%
d4: 37%
Nf3: 9%
c4: 7%
I'm sure you can do the math. 
And again that's for all time controls.

Somehow showing me one game is supposed to be an argument, I'm not sure how that logic is supposed to work exactly.

It'd actually be much better to ask - to look at a game from your favorite player, even a world championship game, and blindly assume that the player is playing e4 because they believe it's generally better... is just fallacious. If you were to ask they may tell you something like... I chose e4 because I feel I have a tactical edge over my opponent. I saw how he handled some particular lines in the sicilian.... supercomputers found some new lines in the Sveshnikov... I've always played e4, I've played it for 30 years and I'm not going to change it up for the world championship. I'm just a more tactical player and have always been. All kinds of reasons that probably have nothing to do with the premises of this conversation.

And again I don't buy into this idea that the most common move is necessarily the best move, infact in modern chess we're usually looking to do just the opposite - to find unusual moves and flesh out / rehearse the line using the increasingly powerful engines - but even so, it's clearly the case top players go for positional games more frequently.

This just sidesteps the question. Everyone in this thread is amateur at best, and we're discussing whether we prefer e4 or d4.

@26

The Masters database is not the very best of the world and contains rapid and blitz.

Candidates Tournament 2022:

1 e4 38 games of which 1...e5: 26 and 1...c5: 12
1 d4/c4/Nf3: 18 games

I like positional games alot, becasue my opponment doesn't know what to do while I do. D4.

Again, I don't think your method of determining the best move - looking at number of games amongst top players - makes much sense, I'd much rather hear their reasoning. But even if your method was a good method... your post is meaningless, because it's one tournament... there are tons of factors that could explain that statistic - tournament format, how far a particular player went, recent developments in theory, the list goes on. For example, d4 has been played more often in world championship matches since 2000 by a substantial margin, according to this article. It's also achieved far better results ...

According to the article... which was written in 2014, out of 89 games since 2000:

- 1. e4 was played 25 times, resulting in 1 win, 3 losses, and 21 draws
- 1. d4 was played 62 times, resulting in 18 wins 6 losses, 38 draws

You could debate these statistics but they're at least as meaningless as the point you just made.

Now the more games you look at... like if you had games database... the more meaningful your statistic becomes.

1.e4 or 1.d4 – which is the better move? | ChessBase

@30

"I'd much rather hear their reasoning." ++ Do not listen to what they say, look what they play. They are the very best of the world and they have qualified for the Candidates' Tournament. That is the most important tournament of their life: winning it allows to challenge the World Champion and get a chance to become the World Champion. So what do they play in this most important tournament of their life? More 1 e4, less 1 d4 / 1 c4 / 1 Nf3.

"d4 has been played more often in world championship matches since 2000"
++ No. 
Carlsen-Anand 2013: 6 x e4, 2 x d4, 2 x Nf3
Carlsen-Anand 2014: 5 x e4, 5 x d4, 2 x Nf3
Carlsen-Karjakin 2016: 13 x e4, 3 x d4
Carlsen-Caruana 2018: 10 x e4, 2 x d4, 3 x c4
Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi 2021: 8 x e4, 2 x d4, 1 x c4
Nepomniachtchi - Ding 2023: 8 x e4, 7 x d4, 3 x c4

"the article... which was written in 2014" ++ Hence obsolete.

"the more games you look at the more meaningful your statistic becomes"
++ No. Rapid and blitz games are meaningless as to the opening. Lower level games are meaningless as to the opening too. Take your database and weed out all blitz and rapid games and all games with players rated < 2700. Quality over quantity. In lower level games or faster time controls the many mistakes dwarf any minute difference between 1 e4 and 1 d4.

e4

Why do you care what the others are playing?

If you feel comfortable with 1.e4, keep playing it.

It's not obsolete, it's anecdotal - like your entire argument, which has now reduced to "Magnus Carlsen played it in these tournaments". So now you want to debate Magnus Carlsens player preference, I suppose...? If you can't come up with an argument that contain a critical thought, and just blindly defer to anecdotes of top players in certain tournaments that favor your argument, excluding the tournaments that don't support your arguments... there's nothing there to debate, it's a meaningless point.

For example, Carlsen played the Sveshnikov against Caruana after supercomputers found new lines in the opening... that has absolutely nothing to do with the premises of this conversation, but you've selected that tournament as evidence for your point - this is completely meaningless.

If you can find a dataset that's clean of blitz games and large enough to make statistical inferences from feel free. Usually players either play d4 or e4, and that's their move regardless of the time control, I don't think many players completely change opening systems based on time control... your argument isn't very good because we're not asking about the quality of games, we're just asking what first move players tend to play on average. But anyway, I digress.

Keep trying

1 e4 is played more than 1 d4, 1 c4 and 1 Nf3 combined in the 6 most recent World Championship matches and Candidates' tournament. So the best players of the world chose in majority 1 e4 as their best chance.

But again if you go back a little further, since 2000, there's more d4 than e4... your argument is really just anecdotal. And if you're talking about the individual tournaments the evidence you just posted refutes your own claim - Nepomniachtchi - Ding 2023: 8 x e4, 7 x d4, 3 x c4

You discount evidence that doesn't support your point /overemphasize the evidence that does support it.

And again the constraints of the tournament are a determining factor, among others...

It's a meaningless argument anyway, again polling is not a good way to answer this question in the first place... at best your argument reduces to some appeal to convention. That argument isn't based on any actual thought of your own... or even the thought of others, it's just very abstract and selective inference...

Carry onward!