For tactical e4 players: what are your choices against annoying positional openings?

So what do you do when the opponent wnats to go for a bor... er... positional opening? 

I like the budapest gambit against 1. d4, because most of the time I can get the pawn back and the position gets pretty open, similar to an e4 game.

However, some times the opponent may not follow with c4 after 1. d4, Nf6

So what are your choices against other openings? Such as 1. d4, Nf6 2. Nf3 or ... 2. Bf4 ? Is there a good way to convert it quickly to an open and tactical position? 

Also, what are your choices against the sicilian?

"So what are your choices against other openings? Such as 1. d4, Nf6 2. Nf3 or ... 2. Bf4 ?"
++ You can play 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b5 and 1 d4 Nf6 2 Bf4 c5 intending ...Qb6 

"Also, what are your choices against the sicilian?"
++ There are plenty of sharp tactical lines against the Sicilian. Example:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1993385 

nepo: am i a joke to you? (destroys alireza in 30 moves with the king's gambit)

you said tactical openings only exist until 1800 and nepo is rated almost 1000 above that. the king's gambit is maybe the most tactical  of all openings. mamedyarov beat kramnik just a few years ago with the budapest. the original poster is 1500 and can play any opening with success until he reaches far beyond 1800 or even 2400. on lichess in games between 2500 player which is about 2400 here the budapest does just as well as anything else. black wins 41 percent and white wins 51 percent. that is almost identical to the queens gambit declined

only 236 games played in rapid and classical between 2500 rated players with the budapest. white wins 47% and black wins 40%. the queen's gambit declined is 46% for white and 41% as black.

many openings have reputations for being bad because they are not played by the very top players but this fact is meaningless to us. tactical openings do just fine

it does poorly at the masters level but i already said that top players do not play it often and that is why it is a false way to judge an opening. what you lose in objective strength you gain in the fact that your opponent rarely sees the opening. the fact that the kings gambit has such a terrible reputation is one of the reasons why it performs so well. if you play the opening you see it many times as white while your opponent sees it once every 100 games. you are weaker but fighting on familiar ground. your opponent is stronger but fighting on unfamiliar ground. that is why the kings gambit does just as well as the queens gambit until you get to the very very top.

at your level the budapest performs just as well as the queens gambit declined so it is more than just playable

I played the Modern Benoni for probably 15 years. You can't get much more tactical. I gave up, after white's positional approaches became more refined and widely understood. As white, I play d4 c4 openings because I think black has less chance of making them positional, than against 1. e4. I faced the Budapest recently, played in Daily by a strong player. I made a mistake in the opening, which I'd never faced before except once in blitz, and drew because my opponent refused to play the sharpest line, which wins the exchange. I'll post it. It's an interesting variation.

You might like this then. As white I kept trying to win until the end, including saccing a piece for pawns.

I was expecting 8. ...Bf5, which wins the exchange for black and loses the game. I was going to reply with 9. h3.

Woah... c5. That sounds like it leads to fun. Is there a name for it?

Interesting... I don't know much about the benoni. But even openings that have been better understood interest me, because there is still a chance some people don't know about the stuff.

at one time i also played the budapest and did well with it. the only reason i changed was because i became tired of playing the same lines time after time

karlabos - the benko gambit is a great deal of fun and fits all of the criteria that you are looking for. it also performs very well and is even played by master

I'm afraid of playing the benko because I saw a video on the nescafe frappe counterattack and it looked awesome... except that for the white, lol
I wish I could play that line myself, but it requires too specific moves from the opponent

b5 after Nf3 looks huh... weird. Is there theory for that?

The other one I played with myself, it's pretty fun. You threaten the g2 pawn and if you don't get it then you harass the bishop with Nh5. All in all, the opponent is out of theory really quickly.

Rather than 'tactical vs [positional'  I like to think  'classical vs hypermodern' and 'activity vs structure'.  To get an interesting game all you need is to be on opposite sides of either dichotomy.

Against the Sicilian as white I play aggressive, open Sicilian main lines. The learning curve is brutal for them but blitz accelerates it.

I think the Benko is positional and rather quiet. Black does best with the queens off. Just long-term pressure on white's queenside. It has a repuation as being tactical but it isn't, particularly. It's a long-term, positional pawn sacrifice. Modern Benoni is far more tactical than the Benko but also far harder to play as black.

#22
"b5 after Nf3 looks huh... weird."
There is theory on 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b6
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b5 stops transpositions with 3 c4

But it's generally held to be weak for black, because c4 hasn't been played and white can play with pieces, instead. So 3. d5 is superior for white.

#26
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b5 3 d5 c6 is good for black.
The most powerful is 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b5 3 e4 and that is about as good for white as the Budapest Gambit 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5 that white avoids with 2 Nf3.
I do not mean to say that 1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 b5 is any better than 2...e6 or 2...g6, but likewise 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5 is no better than 2...e6 or 2...g6.

Thought you wrote 2 ... c5

#27
The original poster is a fan of the Budapest Gambit 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5, but that does not happen if white plays 2 Nf3, so his question was what to play after 2 Nf3 to steer towards sharp positions like in the Budapest Gambit. I suggest 2...b5.