King's pawn opening [ e4 ] not played at high levels!

I'm surprised nothing else made it on the list besides e4 and d4.

Even i am surprised! 

Unless one is playing in a pool where failing to recognize last week's innovation is likely to cost you money, any mainline opening system that suits your temperament is a decent choice. In fact, those that are NOT being played by the elite are often better choices because the theory is NOT moving beneath one's feet as you go from game to game. But then there are those who simply like to stay current and emulate the masters. To each his own.

Eric/Prakash: My data was meant only to compare 1.e4 and 1.d4. I did not look at the distribution of other openings. You can see from the count, however, how many games of other lines there are.

Enigma: True enough on the Top 10 issue, but any really small pool of players would not be expected to definitively match the bulk distribution, in any case. Simple statistics would allow for substantial variation with a sample of only 10.

But the 2700+ are the ones playing the Top 10's in these tournaments.  So how does that work?  Like I said there's only 37 2700+ players and of the Top 10 a lot are rarely in action.  Anand, Shirov, Topalov. 

But we can look at the opening distribution of some of the super tournaments and see.  Maybe there we do see more d4.

I think it is because of a few reasons. First of all, against 1. e4, Black has quite a few solid defences, where it is very hard for White to play for a win, without risk and allowing good counter-chances. One of these openings has been named by quite a few posters already, the Petroff. Kasparov himself had quite a few problems trying to break this defence. It's also in the repertoire of almost all the top players. Another rock-solid defence that is taking the sting out of 1. e4 is the Berlin wall. White is having a lot of trouble proving any sort of advantage against it, as well. Plus, the bishop pair gives Black very good counter-chances in the endgame. Another defence that is sporting good results is the Caro-Khan. Players have even had to experiment with the Fantasy variation in order to press Black for an edge. And the last reason for the decline of 1. e4 is the Sicilian. Carlsen even played the Dragon at Bazna, which says quite a lot about Black resources in this very popular defence.

Do none of the big boys (and girls) play 1. c4? Or anything else?

Hey, Anand played the English once against Topalov in the championship match while every other game was with d4. :D It drawed, so it can't be that bad. Anand being 2787 elo and Topalov 2802.

There's also a 2701 ELO rating player who exclusively plays the English:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/explorer?pid=49039&side=white

Also English was just played by 2761 Elo player for a win:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1587273 

I know. I keep seeing these voluminous treatments of the English, which would be strange if no GM's play it.

I have Kasparov playing the white side of the Petroff 27 times, winning 10, losing 1 and drawing 16, that's hardly an awfull score.

There is just to much bs in this thread, there has already been shown numbers that say that 1.e4 and 1.d4 is used roughly the same at the higher levels, still we have beginners, who hardly understand the nature of the Petroff (or the Berlin wall) spout nonsense about this and that opening.

Anand has been playing 1. e4 for most of his chess career. He only started using 1. d4 after losing a theoretical battle in the match against Kasparov. And even now, against Topalov, he didn't play 1. e4 once. Perhaps it was psychological. Still, I guess the only reason why he still plays 1. e4 is because he feels more comfortable in open and semi-open games.

Carlsen had trouble with 1. e4 against Nisipeanu in Bazna. The Romanian GM went for a long forced line with Black, securing a balanced middlegame. It's precisely lines like the Schliemann that do not exist in the closed and semi-closed games that give 1. e4 players difficulty in preparation. Against Wang Yue, he even had to employ the double-edge King's Gambit in order to avoid something like the Petroff or the Berlin. Even in that game, his win can be attributed only to his better play in the middlegame, than to the opening itself. Against Radjabov, again he elected to avoid the Sveshnikov by playing an early Nc3 and going for an Accelerated Dragon. Again, his win was more because of his better play in the middlegame than as a result of the opening. Still it's interesting that his results are better from original positions, not over-analysed and prepared at home, something which is slowly killing the fun in practical chess. In games where he went for main lines, his strong opponents didn't have any trouble holding the game. It just shows that practical thinking and OTB ingenuity is slowly withered away.

I think 1.d4 is more positional and strategic opening, white has better control of the game and avoids surprises like Petrov, French etc where black could be well prepared in these lines 

All the "1.e4 is dead" talk stems almost exclusively from World Championship matches, where I don't think e4 has made an appearance since Kasparov.  Those are the only high-level matches most people ever hear about.

Right, and as said above, all this is high-level chess fashion & has absolutely nothing to do with 1. e4 being somehow "worse" than 1. d4. Not even at the WC level, and CERTAINLY NOT at our level here!

So it seems queen's pawn opening is better than king's pawn opening.

Are you high? What gave you that impression?

I would just like to advance in chess, so i want to learn the best. The games of high rated players, playing for a win, gave me such an impression!

If the point hasn't been clearly made yet, Prakash, any of the major opening systems are playable, and playable at GM level.

Now, your choice is personal. If you want to base it on a particular player, fine. If you want to base it on the most common choice of the top 10, or 20, of 100 players, fine. It's a personal choice.

However, what is best for YOU at the moment, might not be the opening systems of some small group of elite players. Indeed, ALL the top players have played nearly ALL of the major systems at one point or other in their learning years, only to settle on what they play now because it works best for them in their circle of play.

You are of lower club player strength at this moment. I'm guessing that most coaches would suggest varying what you play while you get better, and probably learning tactics through the use of 1.e4 open games before one ventures into a career dedicated to a narrow choice, based on what SOMEONE ELSE is playing.

However, if you are a budding GM prospect in the making, get yourself a coach and take her/his advice on how to pick your CURRENT opening repertoire. Indeed, some coaches would suggest that you simply limit your opening study at this point to making good development moves, then looking up what you played AFTER you played it to see where you might have departed from theory, then try to understand why your move wasn't best.

In any case, have fun, play different stuff, learn a lot, and win some games.

Best wishes.

Thanks a lot for your wishes and advices DrawMaster. At the moment i would like to continue with my King's pawn opening as i know its not bad at all at my level and am pretty good at it rather than queen pawn openings . I will also learn some good openings of queen pawn and at the end will play whatever suits me the best.

If ir means anything, Bobby Fischer and Mikhail Tal used this opening quite abit. 

...and, Prakash_M, while you apply the good advice by DrawMaster, please realize that while the opening is important, its importance is often very much exaggerated - in particular when considering amateur players.