What are the most common responses vs 1.d4?

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Avatar of chessteenager

Against 1. e4 its obvious you will see mostly sicilian/ 1..e5 literally 80% of the time then another 10% to french/caro then sidelines.

 

Against 1.d4 what are the most common repsonses?

I feel like its mainly nimzo slav QGD and Kid

followed by QGA benoni and grunfeld then sidelines.

 

What are the most common at amateur ratings like 1200-1700

Avatar of MonkeyH

Chessbase live will probably only give games with players 2000+ rated so that won't help the OP.

As a d4 player myself in that rating range I see mostly:

-QGD with an early b6

-KID (both e5 and c5 variations)

-Slav

-Nimzo / Modern Benoni

 

What I rarely see is:

- Dutch

- Old Benoni (d4 c5)

- Grunfeld

- QGA

- Benko 

- Budapest Gambit

Avatar of dpnorman

I played d4 from the time I was 1000 to when I was just breaking 1800 (which was about one year, around 100 tournament games). The responses I saw the most from my opponents (mainly class players, a few experts), in order from most games to fewest, were:

-QGD

-Nimzo-Indian

-KID

-Slav/Semi-Slav

-Dutch (various types)

-Grunfeld

-Benoni/Benko

I saw a lot of QGDs and Nimzos. Higher-rated players often played the KID against me but not so many class players. The opposite can be said of the Slav/Semi-Slav, maybe because the Slav is not such a great opening to play for a win when you are much higher-rated than your opponent. Also, no one I ever faced in a tournament ever accepted my Queen's Gambit. I suspect as one climbs the rating ladder, the frequency of Grunfelds (too theoretical for most players under 1900) increases significantly, but I am not sure since I now play 1. e4 in most of my games with the white pieces.

Those are the main responses you will need to have a lot of preparation against. As you can see above, I grouped some things together such as all the lines of the Dutch (Leningrad, Classical, Stonewall) and KID (Mar del Plata, 6...Na6 or 7...exd4 lines, Nbd7), and I almost always played 3. Nc3 against 2...e6 so I rarely had to face lines like the QID or Bogo at class level.

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