I ranked all 20 first moves for white.

The van geet opening is in my opinion very underrated. First of all, it's one of the best transposition chess openings, as it can lead to the closed sicilian (If black plays c5), Vienna game (If black plays e5), either the falkbeer variation of the vienna or the scandinavian variation of the alekhine's defense (If black plays nf6) Or either the richter veresov attack or the rapport jobava system (If black plays D5)
But even if you don't want to transpose to other openings, you can play the main line of the van geet opening which is 1. nc3 d5 2. e4. Usually the opponent plays 2. d4 and you play 3. Nce2. It will lead to a closed game very often where your plan is to put the Knight on G3, develop the light squared bishop to c4 (Although in some positions developing the bishop to b5 is better), then close the position with d3 and then either playing nf3, or if you want to get aggressive push the F pawn to F4 (stockfish doesn't like the second plan though, but it's interesting). It works very well and i think this opening should be played more often.

#20: Barnes Opening (1.f3). Awful. Just awful. Not only does it weaken the king, it's also pointless.

#19: Grob Opening (1.g4). Better than 1.f3 because at least the Grob helps you develop (2.Bg2 is now a possibility), but it still somewhat weakens the king.

#18: Amar Opening (1.Nh3). Numbers 18-13 are all about the same in my opinion. They're all pretty much pointless. Out of all of those, this is probably my least favorite by a slight amount. Why wouldn't you develop the knight towards the center?

#17: Sodium Attack (1.Na3). Again, why not develop it towards the center?

#16: Kadas Opening (1.h4). I will no longer want to possibly castle on the kingside later on in the game. Also, just about useless.

#15: Ware Opening (1.a4). I will no longer want to possibly castle on the queenside later on in the game. Also, just about useless.

#14: Clemenz Opening (1.h3). Great if you want to play black. I don't know why you would want to do that, but okay.

#13: Anderssen Opening (1.a3). Again, great if you like playing black more than you like playing white.

#12: Polish Opening (1.b4). It's just better to control the center. But at least it's not pointless, and it doesn't weaken your king.

#11: Van't Kruijs Opening (1.e3). This will block in your dark-squared bishop. It's not bad, but not the best.

#10: Mieses Opening (1.d3). Pretty much the same for the opening above, but it blocks in the light-squared bishop instead.

#9: Saragossa Opening (1.c3). About a half a year ago I went through a phase of really liking this opening. It actually isn't terrible, but there are moves that are more useful. 1.c3 often transposes into the London or possibly some sort of Trompowsky or Torre but with c3 played early, so you might as well play d4 on move one.

#8: Nimzowitch-Larsen Attack (1.b3). Decent. I don't have much to say about this opening.

#7: King's Fianchetto Opening (1.g3). Not bad, but I prefer 1.Nf3 first.

#6: Bird's Opening (1.f4). This is often talked about as a joke opening, but it is actually a good move, and often quite aggressive. I have a friend with a 2100 FIDE rating who plays the Bird OTB whenever he plays someone he thinks prepared for his regular opening. The one problem it has is that it can weaken the king.

#5: Van Geet Opening (1.Nc3). I play this in blitz games every once in a while and I have decent success with it. I prefer 1.d4 or 1.e4 in rapid games, though, because I want to keep c4 as a possibility later on.

#4: English Opening (1.c4). Solid. There's really no problems with it, I just like the other three moves I haven't named more.

#3: Reti Opening (1.Nf3). A great opening. This leaves you with many possibilities for move two: 2.g3, 2.c4, 2.d4, 2.e4 if black doesn't play 1...Nf6 or 1...d5, 1.b3, etc. This is my dad's favorite opening for white.

#2: Queen's Pawn Opening (1.d4). Barely losing to 1.e4. I played 1.d4 for years (Accelerated London mainly, with Queen's Gambit every once in a while) before I ever tried 1.e4, and I loved playing it. It follows the simple opening principles and has many decent openings it can go into.

#1: King's Pawn Opening (1.e4). Really this is just due to personal preference. I think 1.e4 and 1.d4 are equally good. They both follow all the simple opening principles and are both great. But 1.e4 has my favorite opening: the Italian. The Italian is the main reason I like 1.e4 most.

Absolutely. I'd love to compare.

You just said why it isn't that good. It lets black decide which opening it turns into. The "main line" you mentioned? The first couple moves (1Nc3 d5 2e4) is called the Scandinavian Defense closed, and it leads into this:

And I'd much prefer blacks position in this over whites. Black can push b5 next turn. It's 100% playable of course, but there are several bette ways that white can open.

Yeah, it looks like most peoples opinions copied except for the Birds Opening which I'm glad someone else here appreciates.

Yeah, I guess it's a pretty typical opinion, but with a couple slight differences (I think I ranked both the Bird and the Van Geet higher than what most people would put it).

Well I mean, the Van Geet is the main thing I disagree with in your ranking, because the mainline is bad, it if you wat it to turn into another opening you give black to much say in which one. Why did you put it at 5?

Also how would you divide them into tiers?

Semi-Slav is a pretty crazy opening.

Tartakower is very solid.

In the database, white scores a lot higher in a lot of lesser QGD variations but against the major defences like the Tartakower, Ragozin, Semi-Slav, white is not having such an easy time finding a winning advantage.

In the London, white is often struggling in the reversed QG main line and is not really playing for the win (theoretically).

You can play the Reversed Knights' Tango also.

I put it at 5 because at least it does something, unlike pushing an a- or h- pawn one square. I also don't play the full mainline with 4.Ng3. I usually play this:

Here I predict white's position looking better in the next few moves. I'm not checking my moves with the engine, so I could be completely wrong. But that's what I think.

I guess for tiers it would be:

20-19 - Bottom

18-13 - Lower Middle

12-7 - Middle

6-4 - Upper Middle

3-1 Top

E4 op

I am d4 player

I know I'm quite late to asking this, but I'm just wondering what makes the Petroff "not the most interesting game" to you. I mean, it kinda depends on what white plays on move three. He could enter a more "boring and drawish" line like 3.Nc3, or he could play a more aggressive but still sound Urusov Gambit with 3.Bc4. There's also the main line, of course, which I don't find particularly unexciting. So I'm just curios as to what your thoughts are on why it's not very interesting.

I think its

1. e4

2. d4

3. nf3

4. c4

5. B3

https://www.chess.com/blog/1cbb/the-father-of-a4

In my opinion, it's just way too much for anyone to argue that there is any objective order between the four most popular moves. They are all about equally strong and some of them frequently transpose into each other. They all obviously lead to a draw with best play and the extent to which one might be better than another is more a question of whether humans enjoy playing the resulting positions or find them practically easy to navigate, i.e. a matter of taste

Actually, I'd kinda add 1. g3 to that list since I can't think of any independent options therein where white can’t transpose to English or Reti lines which are totally fine. It is mildly committal but that's more a practical issue for some players than an objective one

When you start talking about winrates, that is a practical/subjective/human argument rather than an objective argument to my mind. That's more about "what people are used to" and "what people are more likely to make mistakes against" or "what people are more likely to be caught off-guard by" than about which is actually a better move

Just my opinion but I stand by it ig

Why is the Kadas so high? Its just ware with queens pawn

It at least forces a same side castling game (or has serious pressure on blacks king) and while it's regarded as a troll move, white does actually have active play with it unlike Ware.

Why did you revive this thread? How the hell did you even find it?! This mess was literally 6 feet under until you came along