French or Karo-Cann

As white I like d4 entering a stonewall when I can and adapting to a few black counters (KID, early unprotected c5, or early bf5).  As black against d4, if it's not d4/e3 then I play the Budapest.  Against e4 I've been playing e5 but it's just too many variations for me to look at with the time I have.  While those openings can be entertaining they are less satisfying than being able to build up an army and slowly move towards the final goal in unison.  So I'm thinking either the French or Caro-Kann could give me an opening with relatively decent development, maybe an exchange or two and a solid pawn structure and plan.  Do either of these openings offer some tactical gochtyas for the unwary as well?  I discovered how not to play the Winawer today.

I agree, having toyed with both I feel much more attractive and witty since I moved from the french to the CK.  My bishop is happier too.

yeah, but your queens knight is less satisfied!

:-P

i like both openings, but lean towards the french.

I don't know, as a realitively successful French player, I feel very attractive, as well as superior, in that yuppie "I make six figures and I'm not even thirty" kind of way. Plus, you get good endgames in most of the variations if you last that long.

I love the French, but I can play the Caro too...it delights me when I move my king without castling in the French and my opponents are lik, wth?!

It gets me a centralized king as opposed to a king in the corner which usually gets me the advantage in a French Endgame.

I definitely wouldn't ditch an opening because of one loss.  I've just played 12 OTB tournament games, so part of it all is just being able to maintain focus.  The Winawer debacle was hard to see since I won a rook for a bishop but that "win" turned out to be losing.  But what I like is openings that yield a good strategy and plan for the pieces AND the pawns.  I'm perfectly happy shutting down all counter play and then winning a 1 pawn up endgame.   

Thanks AnthonyCG.  It sounds like the KC might be a little more my speed.  As for the master games, I always have trouble looking at GM games as I really don't get what's going on.  Regular Master-Expert level those make sense to me when they are annotated.

I don't have time right now but i've played both and i would suggest the french. I had a very high winning percentage with it. I stop playing it because I got bored with it. I switch to the caro kann for a couple of weeks it was ok and i had mixed results. I would say try both and see which one you like the most. I will comment more on this I have more time.

Timeless

Choose your opening depending on what position you want to have or to play..

i am comfy on both sides of the french the caro cann i think is a bit sharper because white can do so many things against it

The Caro-Kahn is less likely to blow your opponent out of the water, but is, I have found as a player of both, also more reliable and you tend to have fewer problems developing your pieces, esppecially that c8 bishop. It's also got the advantage of novelty that the French doesn't 

I think this hasn't been said yet, but if white isn't careful when playing against french, you can destroy his center pawn structure (by playing c5), leaving him with weak e5 pawn. And if white still isn't careful, he will lose e5 pawn also, it's easy for black to attack this pawn with more than one piece (Nc6, Ne7-Ng6, Qc7...). If you play a lot of live chess, than you'll manage to destroy white's center a lot of times and as someone already said, french pawn structure works great in endgames.

I started playing a lot of live chess 2 weeks ago and I was constantly losing with french, even though I played it a lot in correspondence chess. But by now I got some sort of a feeling what I have to be careful of. I was also thinking about playing caro-kann against e4, but I felt that I'm not enough familiar with it for live chess. But I'm going to try it now. Don't let one loss stop you from playing an opening completely. Some openings suit me even though I'm losing at first.

i think in the caro kann u usally end up playing c5 anyway

...whether its french or CK, its chess and I luvvv playing chess .... be it online or in real live ....:)

I think I will definitely try both though since I plan to play one tounrmanent per month over the Winter it will probably help my results to focus on one or the other.  The exchange French doesn't seem very good for white, it looks like both sides get easy development with an even game.  The advance Caro-Kann looks suspiciously like a QGD which isn't bad either.  When white advances it looks like in the French black's problems are the bishop and the kings knight will need two moves to get to the third rank while in the Caro-Kann both knights get stuck and a c6-c5 move is required at some point which feels less correct than the French's goal of an immediate c5. 

I avoid 1...c6 because of the Accelerated Panov, also known as the Anti-Caro Kann. (1.e4 c6 2. c4)

I avoid 1...e6 because of the Exchange French. (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5)

In general, I try to avoid early pawn breaks as Black because I feel they give White too much influence over the flow of the game.

BlackWaive, what is wrong with the exchange French for black?  It looks like almost pure equality.

Given the choices of openings you mentioned other than what you play in response to 1.e4, I would recommend the French. It's difficult to recommend the Caro-Kann to a player who also plays the Budapest.

If I'm trying to win, I'd greatly prefer "complicated" over "equality". And if White plays correctly, it can be very difficult to make complications in the Exchange French.

I'm fine with draws under certain circumstances, but if I need to use a different opening system when I want to win, then I may as well learn a different opening system to use against anything.

Caro-Kann: Good enough for Karpov, good enough for me. It's also easy to learn and solid.