What do GMs play as black against 1. D4?

I'm struggling to find a good opening to play as black against d4 and was seeing if any games by gms might give me some ideas

https://lichess.org/blog/YsTt4hIAAB8Ay0Ir/candidates-day-14-nakamura-and-ding-battle-for...-possibly-nothing

@gravija said in #2:

lichess.org/blog/YsTt4hIAAB8Ay0Ir/candidates-day-14-nakamura-and-ding-battle-for...-possibly-nothing
Not bad, but is there something better?

Well here is the result of me playing a poor man's version of what they played:

@vqh said in #4:

Well here is the result of me playing a poor man's version of what they played:
Not bad, the nimzo indian and kings indian against d4 are solid options - along with d5.

@vqh Play the Slav Defence which can be tunneled down to the Grunfeld.
Or if you like, the Polish Defence is also good but a bit risky.
Try playing a6!? against d4 which often transposes to the St George Defence.

"What do GMs play as black against 1. D4?"

Let's see the list of world champions:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=31596
(Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais)

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=10313
(Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant)

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=19077
(Howard Staunton)

https://www.chessgames.com/player/adolf_anderssen.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/paul_morphy.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/wilhelm_steinitz.html
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https://www.chessgames.com/player/emanuel_lasker.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/jose_raul_capablanca.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/alexander_alekhine.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/max_euwe.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/mikhail_botvinnik.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/vasily_smyslov.html
https://chessgames.com/player/mikhail_tal.html

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=16149
(Tigran Petrosian)

https://www.chessgames.com/player/boris_spassky.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/robert_james_fischer.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/anatoly_karpov.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/garry_kasparov.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/vladimir_kramnik.html
https://www.chessgames.com/player/viswanathan_anand.html
https://chessgames.com/player/magnus_carlsen.html

See the table to the left, showing the openings

Personal Conclusion:
QGD, Semi-Slav, Grunfeld, King's Indian.

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• You see in the list that some has played Nimzo-Indian, and that some considers it 'best' against d4.
  You can't force it. Theory has changed since those times - your opponent will play Nf3! instead of Nc3, then you may choose between Q.I.D and Bogo-Indian.

Q.I.D - played by Karpov, refuted by computers. (Shankland's d4 repertoire on chessable - you can have a space-edge easily).

Bogo-Indian - played by no world champion, refuted by computers. (0.5 by Stockfish 14+ NNUE, depth 45)
But these are Closed positions, so don't engines too much. GM Perelshteyn actually recommends this line, so what can I say?

I thought these days people started with the Nimzo move order (Nf6 e6) because if white plays Nf3 first instead of playing Nc3 to prevent the Nimzo then black can go into the QGD and white's already given up the option of playing the Exchange Variation Kasparov-style with an early f3. And if they do play Nc3 then you can just play the Nimzo. But then White also has the option of playing the Catalan, which currently seems to be considered preferable to either of the other options for white, but also presumably still better for black than allowing a QGD with f3.

On the other hand, as far as I can tell, any of those lines (or any of a whole bunch of others) is basically perfectly fine for either side for anyone below super-GM level, it only seems to be at the highest levels that this sort of micro-optimization of move orders matters that much..

Probably the 3 most respected defences for black at the highest level are the

1. Grunfeld
2. Nimzo Indian
3. Queens Gambit Declined