Why don't more people play the English?

e4 and d4 have more stereotypes. Thus, people only care about those two.

It's considered a bit slow. c4 doesn't open any bishop lines - in fact it blocks the light-squared bishop. This is why for centuries it was considered a bit pointless - the English chess master Howard Staunton who was the best player in the world for years shocked the chess world by bringing it to top level chess - hence the name. In modern times it's understood that blocking or inhibiting a central pawn move by the opponent (d5 here), while not being as commital as d4 or e4 can have great long-term benefits. In this way it's a sort of waiting move - you want to see what hand black will play. The other major point of 1. c4 is to put pressure on d5 with a view to putting the bishop on g3 at some point, which is quite a slow method of attack for white to go for from the beginning of the game - other than the English the only regular mainline with white playing g3 is again the Queen's Indian, which is itself considered slow and tough for white, there is the Catalan too of course but that's rarer than the English.

Gotham Chess has a good video pointing out the danger of the English for lower-rated players. He gives this line:

...and Black dominates the centre. Of course, it's not forced - one possibility for White is 3.d4, taking advantage of the fact that the queen can recapture on d4 without being driven back by a knight at c6. But the point is that less experienced players are not so good at playing these flexible openings and can easily find themselves with an inferior position.

I’ve played the English opening for a while, and it’s objectively better than 1. d4, according to Stockfish on a high depth (Albeit a minor amount), and is incredibly good if you know what you’re doing.

It's very slow and positional. It's a good opening, sure, but not everyone's style.

+ Stockfish evaluation is dubious. It often wavers and doesn't paint the whole picture. You are only looking at one layer of depth.

Stockfish is on depth 50 in these screenshots.

Using stockfish evaluation for the first few moves are in fact quite pointless, because it hardly proves anything, and theory is much more useful.

That doesn't change anything. A marginal difference in the stockfish evaluation on the 1st move is totally meaningless.

It doesn't tell you anything about why it thinks that or how you can apparently exploit that marginal difference. Often stockfish is actually wrong.

Gothamchess is an absolutely awful chess coach. His content is total trash.

So much of what he says is just bias. He basically tells beginners to play London and Caro Kann every game. He says never play the Sicilian because he hates it. The reason he hates the English is because it's basically reversed Sicilian so he doesn't want anyone to play that either.

There are no dangers to playing any sound opening. Just hearing this type of sentence shows how trash the content of Gothamchess is that he tries to scare his viewers out of playing the openings he dislikes.

He is also very cringe, obnoxious and annoying.

You don't understand. There is no such thing as "objectively better" for two completely different openings like this. What could be better for one person could be worse for another. What could be better for one computer engine could be worse for another. Or maybe computers don't like playing d4, that is of no relevance to humans. The concept is completely meaningless.

To put a computer evaluation at move 1 for two main openings is without meaning. If the computer had -0.5 for one of them it wouldn't make a difference for humans. Nothing is gained by putting them on Stockfish analysis at 50 depth and reporting their evaluation.

"objectively" when used in chess means after using up an enormous amount of time calculating precisely you have a better position with one move rather than another. The objectively best move however isn't always the easiest or funnest to play or gives the best chances over the board. While a computer evaluation can sometimes show the "objectively" best line, it's really not the case here.

The English requires a somewhat different and more positional understanding of the game than the 1. e4 complex of openings. It also has a high rate of transposition into other openings, especially Queen Pawn ones, so it helps to have a foundation there first. That said, there's nothing wrong with it at all, and at the Class level it is guaranteed to have at least some surprise value. There's also not "too much theory" by any means, especially if you look at things like 1. c4 ... 2. g3 as a standard opening setup.

He's a showman, obviously, and likes to put things in a sensational way, but he has a point in this case - letting the opponent occupy the centre without a clear plan for undermining their position is risky, and most inexperienced players are better off playing more directly with 1.e4 or 1.d4. I do play the English, but after mixed results with 1.c4 I'm following his advice and playing 1.Nf3. Not only does this give me English positions much of the time but I also get to play the Reti after 1...d5 2.c4, which I'm finding really interesting. (Admittedly that also allows Black to occupy the centre after 2...d4, but in this case that advanced pawn position is arguably overstretched, making it easier to undermine.)

Also according to Lc0 and A0. If NNUEs believe it to be better, I'll trust them. Granted I'll still play e4 because I'm a human.

I love the english. Most of the lines follow the same idea:

Just simple and great for white. I used to play e4 but it needs too much theory. https://lichess.org/study/qkiEGvJu

Great lichess study for english

english is slow compared to other openings

humans perfer to attack and win or play positionaly

A0 is old news and the match against the Stockfish was a litttle shady, it wasn't even the strongest Stockfish version at the time. Surely A0 is still beyond human comprehension.

What does current Stockfish and Leela prefer nowadays?

I believe léela is weaker than a0 simply because it is a crowdsourced model and isn’t run on a supercomputer… anyone able to correct me on that?

Leela (Lc0, A0's spiritual predecessor) prefers 1. c4 first, 1. Nf3 second, 1. d4 third, and 1. e4 fourth. Current SF isn't even worth looking at. It's an engine, not a neural network, so it's worse at openings.