1. e4 tends to lead to a greater opportunity for tactical play, at least early on. Exchanges, sacrifices often are more readily available, leading to open lines.
1. d4 tends to lead to a more positional game, less exchanges, more maneuvering, controlling key squares, at least in the early stages. It tends to be more of a closed game.
This is nonsense that 1. e4 is for beginners and 1. d4 is for more advanced players. Total malarkey. It's about a preferred style.
Of course , certain openings are the exceptions. Queens pawn openings offer choices for gambits and open lines, as Kings pawn openings offer opportunities to close the game early on.
I used to play 1.d4 back in the day, but I didn't really like playing against slav-like structures for some reason, just felt really stodgy to me which is amusing because I consider myself a positional player. I switched to 1.e4 because it feels I can almost always get a d4, e4 central duo that way, assisted by a c3 pawn.
@Palamede wrote:
Of course this is purely theory because, when we see how the elite is handling the king pawns games these days, with their d3 Ruy Lopez and spanish, it seems like they gave up on the idea of a large edge.
Yep. It seems rather "boring" the elite all playing a d3 Ruy. It is more than likely a "fad". Opening preferences come and go over the decades. Every class player is now playing d3, without really understanding why. The choice leads to quicker draws if players are not in the mood to fight and longer positional games if they want to wear down the opponent. I think generally, Black seeing d3 feels a draw can be achieved with less risk.
I play 1. e4 for 2 reasons...
Both 1. e5 and 1. c5 is met with 2. d4 !!
But then I'm a hobbiest and find entertainment in open games :-)
I still play with e4 and I will probably change to d4 when I become an NM which I am not very far away from. But gotta say d4 is for stronger players mostly titled players.
Please do explain how 1. d4 is "stronger" ?
1st define "stronger" and then demonstrate with proof. TY
d4 isn't neccessarily stronger. Fischer says e4 is the 'best by test', and the Ruy Lopez and the Open Sicilian are some of the most respected openings for white out there. I think it's just a matter of personal preference, whether you prefer a tactical or positional game
Of course we're comparing two moves of equal objective value ("chess is a draw" GK), one will suit the taste of some players and one will suit the taste of others. I think a meaningful difference can be made in pure statistical terms : with which frequency will one move suit your tastes better than the opponent's tastes ? To this question, everyone has a correct answer that is only valid for himself (hence the array of answers you get when you ask the question). Let's take an example anyway.
I did a quick frequency check on chess-db.com including only games where both opponents had a rating of 2600 +/- 100. This ensures a very big sample (bigger than with 2700 +/- 100 anyway). Here are the available frequencies :
1.d4 37% wins, 36% draws, 27% losses over 421 551 games
1.e4 36% wins, 34% draws, 30% losses over 570 903 games
With such a sample, even 1% is a significant difference. Rounding might obscure the interpretation of the percentage of wins, but one can say for sure that 1.d4 looses less often while not winning less often. Yet 1.e4 is clearly more popular (35% more games start with 1.e4). More players rated 2600 +/- 100 believe that 1.e4 will suit their tastes better than their opponents' , and it turns out not to be the case.
This can't mean that 1.d4 is "stronger" than 1.e4 though. My own interpretation would be that very good players defend better against 1.e4 than against 1.d4.
Let's have a look at the same frequencies for a rating of 1900 +/- 100. This time the sample will be smaller because 1°) those games tend not to reach chess-db.com and 2°) 1900-rated players play more often than GMs against players far away in terms of rating (excluding those games from my sample).
1.d4 39% wins, 30% draws, 31% losses over 265 759 games
1.e4 39% wins, 26% draws, 35% losses over 425 276 games
There are fewer draws (as expected) than among GMs, but the same conclusion emerges, perhaps surprisingly (at least to me). 1.d4 looses less often while not winning less often, and 1.e4 is still more popular (more than 50% games more).
The popularity of 1.e4 is a well-known fact, so I guess that players prepare better against 1.e4 than against anything else, at 1900 level just like around 2600.
At my level most of the players play e4 or answer e5 to e4. And it's pretty boring to be honest. d4 is a bit more refreshing.
Both can be unbelievable boring or tactically rich.
1.d4 is the more subtle approach.
