The sharpest or most tactical d4 opening?

I do quite well against the Benko gambit, the nimzo-indian on the other hand gives me fits ! 

Opening battles are fun:

White plays d4 cause he doesn't want to play some wonky sicilian line.  Black doesn't want to get a glacier race with d5 and the QG so he angles Indian (Nf6) follows with e6 and White says, I hate the Nimzo but the Queen works for me plays Nf3 and Black says, AAgh, I don't have time to sit through 30 moves of manuvering in the QID, screw it lets toss out a ringer and plays c5 Benoni.  White says this guys nuts but I really wish I could play f4 right now. Oh well time to start pushing plays d5 and promptly has a heart attack when Black plays b5 Blumenfeld Gambit.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 b5  for those that want the moves to the narrative.

Personally I avoid the Benko and Nimzo altogether with 1.Nf3...

On the other hand I would probably do very well vs. the Benko as white since I seem to understand it quite well as black. Still, most of my success with the Benko has to do with people having no experience playing against it whatsoever and playing some positionally suicidal move very early on. 

 Very informative and interesting. Thanks for the contributors.

When I play 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nf3, I do so not out of fear but because it is more uncomfortable for my opponent. This thread confirms my play to be accurate!

That was honestly a very accurate description of what my mind goes through!

That's a funny analogy. :-)

I don't mind playing the Benoni against Nf3 its when White gets in f4 first that I have troubles.  White always seems to arrive first at his goal.

And? 

If I White gave up all his pieces I could win every game.  If white doesn't move except to get his King to h1, I win every game.  If anything the black position seems to ignore the complete vulnerability of the White King and Black seems more afraid of losing despite facing a lone King.  Assuming rational play by white, black's position could not come about.  Assuming irrational play by white we are back to Black being more afraid of losing than of playing to win.  The setup does not lend itself to the adjectives "Sharp" of "Tactical".

If you're going to recommend the Dutch (1. d4 f5) you should probably narrow your recommendation a bit more.  Do you prefer the Leningrad or the Classical family?  As for the Englund (1. d4 e5) while it is true most people don't know it in Online/Correspondence the surprise effect is of little use and even in OTB normal play usually keeps White on top.  In blitz the Englund does well.

You're kidding, right? I think 1.d4 e5 is the worst opening to play for black against 1.d4. Having two or three traps does not qualify an opening to be good, sound, or sharp. Blech.

http://www.chess.com/tournament/englund-gambit---open

From personal experience: A thematic tournament in the Englund puts such a difficult time on black. You try and try to hold the opening on the black side, and of course you have to "hold serve" and win with white. I can't think of any other opening where there would have been so many results of 1-0. If anybody is interested, I wrote a blog entry about my final round win (with black) against mandelshtam. You can find it from here.

http://blog.chess.com/ozzie_c_cobblepot

That's just amazing that you think the dutch is more tactical than various positions that arise from the semi-slav. 

The Dutch (1.d4 f5) is ten times better than the Englund (1.d4 e5?).

For someone looking for an unbalanced position with black, I would have to recommend the King's Indian.

Personally, I play the Nimzo-Indian and the Slav.

Interesting, good idea. Personally, I think it's an excellent idea to learn the Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit. As a non-e4 player and a non-e5 responder to 1.e4, I don't think the other 1.e4 e5 openings are of nearly as much value to learn.

Why serious problems? I don't see any gain with a quick ..d5 it's again a stonewall and White can play b3 to exchange the dark-square bishops+prepare c4.

ozzie, after having played a whole tournament in 1.d4 e5 you must have a very solid picture of the gambit. Which line did you find to be the best for White?

Check out my games from the tournament and see!

I ended up choosing this for white:
1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 Nc6 3.Nf3 Qe7 4.Nc3 Nxe5 5.Nd5 Nxf3+ 6.gxf3 Qd8

And this for black:
1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 Nc6 3.Nf3 Nge7

What's kind of cool about that tournament is that each player did a little bit of investigation at the beginning and chose some line. Then you can play through their games and see how well their choices did "under duress".

Thanks, without knowing any theory in this "half"-Budapest line, I guess I would pick some sort of Bf4 setup, like the Rubinstein-Budapest line, so that after ..Bb4+ Nd2 wont block the c1 bishop. However here, since only one knight is attacking the pawn, I am not sure this is necessary. E.g. if instead of 3. ..Qe7 Black plays 3. ..Bb4+ 4. Nbd2 4.Qe7 a3 5.Bxd2+ Bxd2 (Ba5, b2-b4 and Bb2) 6.Bxd2 Nxe5 7.Nxe5 Qxe5 8.Bc3 looks unpleasant.

hmm maybe I might try the dutch, but there was a recent article on chess.com about h-file attack against the dutch, which kind of put me off, since I wanted to be the one hacking, attacking and sacking! :)