Originally posted by kmac27
lol. once i hit 1500 i made it my duty to beat all the people who had beaten me. i soon said screw that after i sloughtered a few and proved my dominance over those who beat me ;-). i have looked at some old games and looked at the moves i made and i would not in a million years play those moves again. lol amazing how the brain evolves.

how so you learn from your mistakes. some are better than others. i thought i learned fast till i heard about others on this site hitting 1700 within a year!

Originally posted by kmac27
how so you learn from your mistakes. some are better than others. i thought i learned fast till i heard about others on this site hitting 1700 within a year!

Generally, I think 1.e4 is for players who like open games and 1.d4 is for those who like closed games. I feel that if you like tactics, play 1.e4; if you like strategy, play 1.d4.

play both....mix it up a bit.....

I never read any articles about Alekhine saying.."I only play 1.e4"

or Capablanca preaching 1.d4...they played many openings...

Originally posted by kmac27
how so you learn from your mistakes. some are better than others. i thought i learned fast till i heard about others on this site hitting 1700 within a year!

Originally posted by wormwood
Game 1405439

Originally posted by davaniel
I disagree, I've been playing 1. Nf3 a lot lately in my games with white, especially against the higher rated opponents, and got some very nice and agressive position out of it. 1. d4 and 1. e4 aren't the only good possibilities...

There's these basic options:
- e4
- d4
- c4
- Nf3
- g3
Next to that there's these more rarely played and slightly less strong but more surprising options:
- Nc3
- f4
- b4
- b3
- d3
The other opening moves are not good enough to consider playing.

1. e4 is the most active opening, played by Anand and Kasparov, the best reply for GM's is c5 but in normal play e5 seems to do just as well or maybe even better.
1. d4 is played sometimes by World Champion Kramnik, and it's slightly calmer than 1. e4, but it requires decent middle and endgame skills.
1. c4 I don't really know that well, but it is certainly a decent opening, and can be quite agressive as well as e4. That's probably why Fischer played it sometimes.
1. Nf3 is the transposition opening, resulting in either positions from 1. d4 or 1. c4 openings, and sometimes even different openings. Pretty solid but requires a respectable amount of opening knowledge.
1. g3, King's fianchetto played by Dutch GM Van Wely to win the Dutch championship is a calm opening that you should play if you really really like the fianchetto position.

The other openings require a lot of knowledge and will only give you an edge against players who are not really good and don't know the opening. For choosing I recommend what suits you best, and note that 1. e4 has the biggest variety of answers possible, so it requires the most opening knowledge, but being the most active start, it does give you something in return for your hard work. Good luck!

In the current world championships in mexico there has been three opening systems used with e4, ruy lopez, scotch and petroff.

kramnik has used Nf3 but has transposed into the catalan with an early d4.

All the rest have been d4 games, slav, qgd, qi, greunfeld.

It's interesting that there hasn't been a single semi open game yet.

P.S. some great master once said that you cannot master chess until you master the ruy lopez.

In his "Logical Chess: Move by Move", Irving Chernev wrote (I'm paraphrasing): "If you play chess to win, play 1 P-Q4, if you play chess for fun, play P-K4 (or P-Q4)."

1.Nf3 1.d4 and 1.c4 mostly end up in a similar middlegame where white isnt trying too hard to win but more to restrict black from doing anything for as long as possible.

1.e4 is the bravest choice by white as you have to be able to deal with e5 systems, sicillians, pirc, queens indian, scandinavian, caro kahn, french, phillidor, alekhine plus a whole load of other stuff.
d4 type games always tend towards roughly the same type of middlegame and it is only through white innacuracies that black gets back into the game.

Basically, it's preference!

e4 is not called open or half open for nothing! It gives you openings that are more tactical in nature, while closed opening give you a much more positional game.

Originally posted by Tyrannosauruschex

1.e4 is the bravest choice by white as you have to be able to deal with e5 systems, sicillians, pirc, queens indian, scandinavian, caro kahn, french, phillidor, alekhine plus a whole load of other stuff...