1.e4 .....e5 is my best reply, is equal game for me....
Responses to 1. e4
Sort:
I've played the french ever since i started playing chess... It isnt as popular as the sicilian but it is seen in more chess games than the najdorf, dragon, rauzer, accelerated fianchetto and taimanov combined, according to john watson. So it's not all that rare. :) anyway, i get a lil bit happy when white replies 2.Nf3, as I know a large proportion of lines transpose such as 2...d5 3.ex dx 4.d4, or 2...d5 3.e5 c5 4.d4 Nc6, and all the others, well, if theyre not in the theory they must at worst be equal?
jon2000 wrote:
1.e4 .....e5 is my best reply, is equal game for me....
Equality for Black after one move?! Surely not! 
I've been playing the french for awhile. All the middle aged guys I see at tournaments (rated 1600-1800) play the Caro-Kann. They're all convinced that white gets no advantage against it, and it requires little study.
Do you mean it requires little study for white or black? I haven't played against the Caro Kann much, but I get fried against the people who know that they're doing.
Little study for black (apparently).
My favorite answer to 1. e4 is 1... c6, Caro-Kann. That has given me a lot of exciting games. My second favorite is 1... c5, Sicilian and mostly the dragon, but I don't play Sicilian as often as Caro-Kann. Sometimes I want a break from those and play 1... e5 or something else. I never play French, well never say never, but I can't remember any recent games where I played 1... e6.
I don't have any special considerations on whether white gets advantage or no advantage on Caro-Kann. It really depends on how you play who gets an advantage. But if you play an opening a lot of times you get experience with the kind of positions you often run into, and it can ofcourse give you an advantage playing types of positions that you know very well whether you play white or black. Caro-Kann is an opening that can sometimes lead to closed positions, and I love closed positions. They can be be tricky and hard to play and that is a challenge.
The Caro-Kann is the most boring opening in history. It is just a way to try to hold onto the game and not actually win the thing.
Not all of the variations in the caro kann are boring, the bronstein-larsen variation is anything but boring and there are others as well. I find the petroff defense more boring than the caro kann myself.
I play the Sicilian against 1.e4 for the most part, have been working on playing the French lately. I used to play the Caro-Kann a few years back and got some pretty good games out of it.
I usually play e5 to allow white to play the Italian or Spanish because I'm usually better prepared then my opponent or sometimes I play Nc6, a very dynamic, imbalanced opening that offers black good attacking chances on the king-side.
I don't like to play Caro-Kann or French because of the KIA (Kings Indian Attack:
1.e4 - e6 2.d3!?
OR
1.e4 - c6 2.d3!?
It is not clear, that whites position is better, but I hate the pressure that white puts on the king-side.
KIA can be dangerous for black against the french. Know what's going on and know what your lines are then it's an equal game for me :)
I usually just resign against 1.e4 because Bobby said that it was best by test. And besides I get to play as White in the rematch!
I like the Nimzovitch defence with 1...Nc6! it's different, and aggressive and leads to unbalanced play.
I'm a big fan of the Pirc (1...d6). For a while I played Philidor's but I just didn't like it, so my high school coach recommended playing the Pirc 10 years ago. I find myself enjoying the counterattacking chances against white's pawn center.
Very good comment! There are lots of ways to end up in (''transpose'' into) a Sicilian position.