I hope nobody has mentioned this yet, because I love it so much. The Noteboom defense! (yeah thats the real name)
It is incredibly unbalanced, and the best part is white moves are all incredibly common, or the only good move. Listen, against d4 you can get alot of interesting imbalances, and my advice is to find a type of imbalance you like, ie IQP, less space, passed pawns, open files, queen side pressure, etc. and find a system that gives you those positions.
@Akbar2thegreat if you like the old benoni I can suggest a really cool line for black in it. d4 c5 d5 f5! The so called Clarendon Court defense. Basically you play a leningrad dutch on the kingside, and a benoni on the queenside.
In fact 1. d4 d5 leading to QGD usually is a boring game indeed. What I mean by boring is, you get a slow cramped game of first 20 moves and then suddenly the position is lost. It might be better to play 1. d4 Nf3 and maybe even try to go out of opening book before the opponent bores you to sleep.
@John_Vuillemot That is a really bad line and even refuted. 3.e4 fxe4 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.g4!
The Grünfeld is solid yet dynamic enough. 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 and the mainline goes 4 cd Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bc Bg7
I have searched a long time a defense against d4. I play main lines with lot of theory and dynamism ( white : e4 with open sicilians and najdorf with black) and since a few months i play Grunfeld, i like it and now i am happy to play against d4 !
You will have to learn many variations but its ok.
QGD is not boring. QGA is a war zone, Exchange Slav is the bane of Slav players but the Slav has a huge following top down. d5 is not boring. Unless you resign after move one every game. Then sure.
@EwoudUtrecht @UnabomberFR The Grünfeld is the best defence against 1.d4. In other words, God would play it against 1.d4. But it´s so much theory. I rather play the solid QGD.
Actually the Nimzo Indian was played by many world champions, can't be wrong
#29
What is good for a world champion is not good for the common people
#28
Kasparov played the Grünfeld in his matches against Karpov, but then after trouble he changed to the King's Indian Defence. Later in his carreer he changed to Queen's Gambit Accepted and then to Slav Defence.
