Queen's Gambit Accepted - e3 or e4?

The e3 line is less sharp and in my view better as a first line to adopt because it's simpler. Why not play that and when you have a line for each major defence revisit if the time investment for 3. e4 is makes sense. Btw if you don't have a line for the rest, you could try to play the trompowky against anything Nf6, Nc3 against the Dutch and over the next two years fill the gaps for the Nf6 defences. There's no need to do it all in one go.

If you already have an 1. e4 repertoire though, why change? There are valid reasons to switch but it's a lot of work and changing 1.e4 for 1.d4 won't necessarily improve your level of play.

With 1.e4, I never really liked the positions, I usually play the Italian with c3 and d4, but then i feel like I would end uup trading so many pieces at the beginning of the game that it already almost feels like a draw lol.

You may do the same with some 1.d4 openings though, perhaps that time is better invested in your middlegame instead and changing your play.

I know this feeling.  Thats why I like gambits so much.

I used to try to play gambits, but I would find that I would never play them right, my opponent would trade off all of the pieces and I would reach a losing endgame. I like to play openings that are solid but also have attacking chances (this is why i awnted to play the KID but there's way too much theory lololol)

Yeah I have been trying the KID some.  That one is rough to try to figure out for sure. 

@20

"it occupies the centre with 2 pawns which is considered to be a main goal of the opening"
++ If this were true, then 1 d4 is wrong and 1 e4 is right.
After 1 e4 you can always follow up with d4 sooner or later.
After 1 d4 black can prevent a later e4 and white often has to settle for e3.

After 1. e4 black can prevent d4 with e5 or c5 which is why they are considered to be the best moves. This is very basic.

"white often has to settle for e3". Exactly right, as white would ideally play e4.

Establishing 2 pawns in the centre is a type of advantage.

What exactly are you trying to argue here?

I assume that each course explains the decision why they recommend the move that they recommend. They might say that it is easier to play, or that it is sharp and tactical, or that it is not sharp and tactical, or something.

The course that recommends e4 almost certainly also explains what happens about the c4 pawn.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I wasn't expecting so much helpful input from so many people lol

I have played both sides of this opening many times, in tournaments, for years.

Both 3. e3 and 3. e4 are totally playable. They are about the same strength. Same goes for 3. Nf3. No other move is on the level of those big three (i.e. things like Qa4, Nc3 lead to a lot easier equality for black). But those three moves are all fine and if you see this opening happen between two super GMs it is a 99% chance the player with white will choose one of those three moves.

3. e4 allows more options from black. you have to know about weird ones like the modern b5/Qb6 or b5 exchange sac lines, 3...Nc6 which is a little sus but which I've played sometimes, and of course the good moves which are 3...e5 and 3...Nf6. The advantage of 3. e4 is that it is more ambitious than 3. e3. You can run people over if they don't know what they're doing more easily with this move

3. e3 there are a lot of possible moves but most of them are just about the same. Like e6, Nf6, a6, maybe even c5 are all likely to transpose into the tabiya mainlines of 3. Nf3. The only actual independent line is 3...e5. It's okay to play for white. I've played it with both sides. Just play 4. Bxc4 and develop your pieces (ok that's admittedly vastly oversimplifying but if more detail is needed I can give it later). As people pointed out, the most famous trap that every Russian preschooler knows is the 3...b5 thing where Qf3 can win you material instantly; I'd also point out on 4. a4 if black goes b4 I still like inserting 5. Qb3 first before playing Bxc4, since black has to do something weird like committing to c6. Anyway

They are both totally playable and you should play around with the database and see which one leads to positions you prefer

Probably e3. e4 there's SO much theory and book it isn't always easy to work it out as black otb so maybe e4 for practical chances if you're really booked up.

There's the Keep It Simple 1 d4 book's repertoire by Christof Sielecki that avoids the QGA. It also avoids the Benko and other black defenses.

It's not so simple actually but relatively speaking it may be more practical for club players than 1 d4 2 c4. It goes 1 d4 2 Nf3 3 g3 4 Bg2 5 0-0, and then usually 6 c4.

But there are exceptions. For instance, if black plays a quick ...c5 then white will need to play d5, derailing white's systematic sequence but it's good for white. There are other exceptions such as when black plays a quick ....Bf5 white replies c4 rather than wait. 

This ^^, A 3. e4 repertoire size comes second only to very few other chess openings and requires deep preparation. It's a very good choice but one should be aware of the preparation effort it takes to play it.

Getting the hang of it requires at a minimum 20+ slow games, because Black has so many responses (e.g. even 3 ..b5 with ..Bb7 is borderline playable even if it's subpar, it still needs preparation). Someone may as well start with 3. e3, which is also very good, in order to focus on other parts of their repertoire and see later which areas of the total repertoire are worth sharpening.

I do think people are being harsher on 3. e4 than it deserves. I've played it many times. It's a great move. 3. e3 is as well. I've played both, but usually esp from 1800 to 2200 3. e4 was my choice. It's really up to the individual. 

The thing is, yeah you might have to do some extra work, but there's also a payoff from doing that work. If you put in a little time, you should know enough to score *very well* against the more suspicious lines such as 3...Nc6, 3...c5 and such. And I think you can create more imbalanced positions with 3. e4 in general, including vs the actual main lines Nf6 and e5. The positions after 3. e3 are of a drier nature I feel. You often don't have as much obvious stuff to work with.

I'm the sort of player who likes to do extra homework if I think it'll give me some sort of higher EV when I play OTB. That's why I don't mind recommending 3. e4 to students at all. Or 3. e3 for that matter, but either way you have to take it seriously. So many people just want shortcuts all the time and that's not how chess tends to work IMO

Just my thoughts, as I said above I think it's absolutely a matter of taste

I play exclusively 3. e4 as White, it's a very good option, but it needs disproportionate study time compared to 3. e3. It can score wins OTB purely on the merits of studying this complex opening, that's also true and partly why I play it.

The thing is that I view adoption of sharp lines under the following "policy", do I score "well" using xyz ? If yes if it ain't broke don't fix it, if not then adopt a sharper, more complicated line and see how that goes.

This ended up, in my case, a repertoire with 3-4 sharp lines with a lot of theory, 3. e4 QGA being one of them.

I wouldn't pre-emptively recommended the sharp line as someone else may be scoring differently with more positional lines in different openings and therefore may want to spend that study time elsewhere.

Again, the line is very good, but adoption of sharp lines everywhere makes the repertoire too big to absorb, just my 2c.

I believe both of the moves deserve attention and it is up to the player way of play to decide.

I would say e4 is better, supported by f3 to solidify the center. The center pawns will also be sometimes used to start an attack on the kingside, supported by f4. Again this is my opinion and you may not like to start an attack but anyways IMO e4 is just better if you want to go for a win

Eh, if you care about achieving any meaningful advantage with white against a knowledgeable opponent, you still need to do quite a bit of studying with 3. e3. Might be narrower than e4 but also at times deeper (I could get into a lot of specifics actually but tbh Idk if I should given some of my most cherished prep is in some of these QGA lines lol). Can be easy to just kinda drift into equality if you don't know much as white there I feel. Ig point I'm trying to make is no shortcuts, whatever you play you gotta take seriously and approach professionally if you are a serious player

(also apropos of nothing I hate that after a decade this website's forum thing still doesn't have a "collapse" type feature when long posts get replied to and quoted, somehow this is still super clunky)