Most annoying/strongest reply to d4?

What is a reply to d4, which is the hardest to face from white's perspective? Looking to expand my repertoire vs. d4

Nf6

Chuck639 what exactly? KID, Nimzo, Grunfeld, Budapest even?

I personally transpose to the Grunfeld, KID or Modern Defences so you should get familiar with some pattern recognition for the first 5-8 moves and think your way thru the middle games from there.

The most important action is you actually think because long term strategies will likely determine the win for advanced and expert players.

I find 2300 players know there theory at this point but until then, both sides get away with many inaccuracies and mistakes so practice your simple end games.

The d4-c4 pawn center is one of the strongest and most common ways for White to attempt to gain an early advantage, and there are three solid families of defenses:

1. The QGD family. After 1. d4 d5 2. c4, Black will choose between the Slav and QGD. The Slav (2… c6) stands well on its own, being simple, intuitive, and ultra-solid while offering fantastic tactical and positional play. The QGD (2… e6) gives White more choice about what to allow and what to disallow. The old mainline of 3. Nc3 allows the Ragozin with 3… Bb4, the Tarrasch with 3… c5, the accelerated Semi-Slav with 3… c6, or the most thematic QGD response with 3… Nf6. The modern mainline of 3. Nf3 allows Black less choice. 3… Bb4+ is not as strong as the Ragozin, the Pseudo-Tarrasch with 3… c5 is ever so slightly weaker than the Tarrasch, 3… c6 in this position can be met with 4. g3, and so most games continue in traditional QGD fashion 3… Nf6 4. Bg5. In this family of defenses, the Tarrasch is easiest to force a draw with, the Slav is most solid, the Ragozin is the strongest low-theory response, the QGD is most flexible, and the Semi-Slav is likely the objective strongest.

2. The fianchetto hypermoderns, the Benoni, the KID, and the Grunfeld. The KID is characterized by a e5 pawn break followed by an f5 pawn break and a kingside attack in exchange for an incredibly weak queenside. The Grunfeld is characterized by an early d5 pawn break followed by a c5 pawn break and sharp, tactical play. The Benoni is characterized by a c5 pawn break if White plays strengthening moves on the kingside rather than pressing for an advantage, followed up by queenside and central counterplay. For KID players, I’d recommend the move order 1. d4 d6, as you’ll be playing …d6 no matter what happens anyways, and now 2. c4? is well met with 2… e5! and Black has already equalized in the English Rat. For Grunfeld players, I’d recommend the move order 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6, and either play d5 when both Nf3 and g3 have been played, or when Nc3 gets played. For Benoni players, I’d recommend simply learning either the sharpest KID variations or the modern variations with Na6 and c6 for if White plays aggressive chess and Black is forced to play e5 simply to not get smothered to death and then only learning the Classical Modern Benoni variations which transpose from Fianchetto KID positions.

3. The classical hypermoderns. After 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6, White can allow the Nimzo with 3. Nc3 or play one of the two anti-Nimzo variations with 3. Nf3 or 3. g3. If 3. Nc3, then Black can and should play 3… Bb4 if they know how to play pawn structures and which ones arise from which variations. If 3. Nf3, Black has the QID with 3… b6, the BID with 3… Bb4+, the Benoni with 3… c5 (as well as the Blumenfeld with 3… c5 4. d5 b5), or the QGD with 3… d5. If 3. g3, Black has the BID again with 3… Bb4+, the Benoni again with 3… c5, or the Catalan with 3… d5.

Now of course there are more ways to play against the d4-c4 pawn center, such as the Benko, the English, the Dutch, the Budapest, and the Chigorin, but these are all slightly worse than the families of defenses I listed above.

1600-2000

statistically, the only line where black's chances of winning are higher. a strong line from the 2.c5 old benoni move order. old benoni might be most promising as it's even stronger in the sidelines

I, a queens pawn player, am most scared of the Kings Indian, and the Grunfeld, with them being the pure reason I didnt switch to 1. d4 sooner than I did. Benoni and Nimzo are also really good as well.

combined with transposing into the even more promising benko, old benoni is playable

we forgot the QGA in our analysis.

looks like it's best stay forgotten. compared to those stats, albin counter gambit isn't shabby at all

old benoni vulture gambit? (!!)

never heard of this before, but it popped on the stats radar and is way more playable than what stalefish thinks about it.

Theres probably a lot of people who try to hold onto the pawn with ... b5, thats prob why.

how do we have statistics for moves that have 0% of games played?

he brings up a good possibility. most of the QGA middlegames that I have seen are fairly equal. I would want to go further down the lines before passing judgment.

well obviously working towards favorable lines for either side changes things. "play it safe" (sound) lines never pop in the stats. but the across the board bad stats tell a story of black's resources being far from promising.

it's soooo ugly to me though

3.Nc3 is not whites strongest move to be honest.

White's best moves in my opinion are:

1) 3.Nf3

2) 3.e3

3) 3.e4

Against the Grunfeld there are lots of cool sidelines.

Dont worry, I found my line, and it pretty much side steps the grunfeld entirely, and puts me in a comfortable position against the KID

Gosh I LOVE the Advance anti-Grunfeld. It happens to have one of the funkiest gambit lines in all of chess, with 3… b5?! 4. cxb5 a6?! 5. bxa6 c6?! gambiting not one, not two, but three pawns as Black dares not waste precious attacking time retaking, even if White plays the provocative a7 Black declines with Na6. Sometimes Black even sacks the full queenside and allows cxd7+ for a whopping total of FOUR PAWNS SACRIFICED!! Craziest thing is IIRC SF 15 used to give it 0.00s, I’m interested what 16 days to this fiesta of a position.

On a more serious note, while all of theses sidelines are playable, only 4. g4 is solid enough to be worth consideration for long-term tournament use AFAIK, and I didn’t see extremely common anti-Grunfeld lines such as 3. Nf3, 3. g3 or 3. f3.

All of them are strong and equally good. There's no as such thing called "strongest". It depends on the style of the players.