English or Spanish?
Sort:
English.
Spanish i.e. Ruy Lopez. Most played at top level and for good reason so.
Between the two, I'd rather play the English. I enjoy the feel of those kinds of games - a lot of room for transposition into different d4 openings ...
But objectively, the Ruy Lopez is completely fine, too.
Pointless question. You can only play the Spanish if the opponent agrees with it.
I reckon 1c4 along with 1Nf3 are of equal standing in chess objectivity as 1e4 and 1d4.
The former couple, however, score very marginally better according to stats on Chess.com and Lichess.
It seems to me that 1c4 and 1Nf3 are almost — but not quite — surprise weapons. Everyone prepares for 1e4 and 1d4, but defences to flank openings are necessarily not prioritised. This may be the reason for the marginality.