quick opening question

Hello,

I am just looking for an opening to use against white when they start with d4. Please list what you feel are the best three and say what kind of game it leads to.

Thank you,

Plotinus

1)king's-indian-defense.tactical.2)queen's-gambit-declined,orthodox-defense.positional.3)nimzo-indian-defense.positional.

Of course, it depends what you're looking for and your style.

The most popular defense is the Nimzo-indian/Queens-indian complex, but you need to be comfortable with not putting pawns in he centre right away and fairly decent at positional play. You get great flexibility in your structure choices as a result.

The Kings indian is more tactical and very frequently ends up a race beween blacks kingside attack and whites Queenside action. Many reallly sharp players don't play it because there are loads of ways white can avoid this race but white can never really easily crack this system making it very reliable.

The slav and semi-slav are better if you like putting pawns in the middle right away. The slav tends more toward peice play and the semi-slav tends toward closed games with black unravelling powerfully later on. Both tend to tactics but they are less tactical than the Kings indian (mostly) and less positional than the nimzo. Very reliable defenses.

The Grunfeld aims to combine the dynamism of the Kings indian with immediately playing in the centre. This is a very complex opening system and its pretty 50-50 whether or not you get a sharp struggle or a positional siege. White tends to dictate the pace of the play a little more here than in the other openings. You need to be very comfortable in both situations. Nevertheless this is a solid opening used by many of the worlds most solid players and the worlds most agressive players.

The Benonis tend toward very sharp play by black. White gets such a large space advantage and the position becomes so blocked black aims to end the game as soon as possible because if he doesn't white will crush him to death. Despite the blocked position black gets loads of scope to attack and be creative.

The dutch is a strange one. Many people play it agressively but it can be positional too. Its a fantastic opening if you're a funky, original and creative player who doesn't mind all sorts of wierd things happening on the board. I think thats why many people play it agressively.

I'm very much generalising here, everything I've said about each complex of openings has a line or two within them that are exceptions, and no doubt I'll be pulled up for it but these are general overviews of each opening complex so please do look further into whichever one grabs your attention. =)