What are the main differences between 1.d4 and 1.e4?

What are the main differences between 1.d4 and 1.e4?

(just getting this crap away from Unanswered Posts)

First notice the board is not symmetrical due to the king and queen.  1.e4 is a pawn on the kingside while 1.d4 is a pawn on the queenside, and this is the main difference.

One generalization for lower level players is true enough to mention. 1.e4 will lead to more tactical games while 1.d4 to more positional.

What is your fide rating?

Common knowledge needs no rating :p

More or less stole that answer from a GM though. A more common answer would probably be something about how e4 opens up the bishop and queen while d4 only opens the bishop... also a GM answer but not one I'm terribly impressed with lol.

1. e4...You come out and fight like a man.

1. d4...You hide behind pawns.

After E4 you are 3 moves away from casteling. Nf3. Bd3 and 0-0 for example. while when you open d4 you are at least 4 moves away from it. also the d4 pawn is already protected and the e4 pawn is not.

Case in point. The petroff: incredibly sharp.

The Najdorf: really dull.

The reason I'm not impressed with 1.e4 "opening up the queen" is that the d1-h5 diagonal isn't really relevant in any opening, and it's often blocked immediately with Nf3 anyway. The real difference is in the asymmetry.

The protected / unprotected thing almost makes sense until you can easily mock it (see above). I think 1.e4 is generally sharper at lower levels because the asymmetry of the board. The king on e1 means you're not going to protect e4 with f3. But with d4 you can play c3 and e3.

Also the breaks. You (most usually) don't break in the center with the f pawn after a double e pawn opening like you would with your c pawn after d4 d5. Again the difference is due to the king and queen. Instead you break with the d pawn. End result is in e4 the center is more likely to open.

Well, first of all, black is not usually playing d5 in sicilians (at least not in the opening).

1.d4 e5? is a good point if it weren't for 1.e4 d5 being a rather passive but solid defense.

d5 is a very common theme in the sicilian. 

Correct.

But not in the opening... at least not in most lines, and in none of the main lines (that come to mind, I don't play 1...c5 by the way).

If you want to say 1.e4 leads to open tactical games I'm not convinced it's because ...d5 is possible on move 12 or something.

1.d4 usually leads to more quiet and positional games, while you often get tactical positions with 1.e4 (probably because a pawn on d4 is immediately defended when a pawn on e4 is at first unprotected, but also because with e4 you free the light-squared bishop up, which is generally much more agressive than the DSB). This doesn't mean in any case that 1.d4 is easier to play than 1.e4, though; they just lead (in most cases) to two different kinds of games.

Well the QG only represents 19.2% of the games with 1.d4 (at master level), so I guess you can't say that.

a stupid question thats never asked by any average player or GM!

Most d4 openings are boring.I mean London,stonewall,colle and ....

But e4 Is more tactical and interesting.

It depends on your chess style.If you want to attack from begining, play e4

and if you like to play more closed and posional chess,play d4:)

If you play e4 and try and use your light squared bishop and move it to a good attacking diagonal your opponent will usually just trade it off with his sometimes even doubling his pawns.  In most games, if you are playing a good player, the light squared bishops will be traded off, if you try to do common white e4 attacking ideas using the white bishop.  Your bishop will be traded before you can even come up with any kind of tactic :D.  I actually played a game where the bishops wern't traded, but I didn't see a check that saved blacks game and ruined mine.  Oh hum!  yeah I am starting to see now that queen pawn openings are rather boring I lose most of the time because I'm bored *yawns* (playing one right now).  Yup, positional games are boring.  You have to really be aware of the imbalances if you are going to play d4.  Really e4 isn't much better people most people will just trade off the light squared bishops and white really isn't left with any edge whatsoever.  What I did learn from experience is if your opponent opts to trade with the knight you could just move your bishop to e2 and later gain space with your pawns gaining a positional advantage as white will be in a better position to do that.  That is ofcourse black opts not to open up the game.  If he does then I have no idea who would be winning in a position where whites bishop is kind of passive and blacks white bishop could be developed to a more active square...  At that point I wouldn't see the point of keeping the bishop, unless you have a long term plan of getting rid of your opponents light squared bishops by trade it for a knight or forcing it to move to a more passive square with your knights...  idk the possibilies are endless but usually most decent players learn to trade off the light squared bishops if white opts to develop it to that famous attacking diagonal aimed at f7.  E4 is fun when your opponent doesn't know to trade off those bishops.  When he's good, might consider playing d4 instead ;), but be prepared and have your newspaper handy because it's going to be a long long game!

^ no light-squared bishop traded

Also I am trying to learn 1. d4 or 1. Nf3 aswell now that I have played 1. e4 all my life

Doesn't even start to make sense.

Go find someone who agrees with you, maybe they could explain your idea to me differently.

The Queens Gambit  1. d4   d5  2. c4 is sound and good.

The Kings Gambit   1. e4  e5  2. f4  is not so good.

1. e4 is sometimes considered not so good in Centaur Chess as Black can equalize with 1. e4  e5  2. Nf3  Nf6!  [Petroff Defense]