/csg/ - Chess General

>Today I guess most GMs play d4 openings

Carlsen, Anand, and Topalov are mainly e4 guys. Kramnik has also been an e4 player.

Kramnik has played d4 openings as White more than twice as often as he's played e4 openings. When playing Black, he normally always uses the Sicilian Defense in response to 1. e4.

GMs prefer d4 openings because there's more good ones you can use (the only e4 e5 opening used seriously at the IM/GM level is the Ruy Lopez) and it also avoids unwanted Sicilians. But it does have a lot to do with current fashion as said.

Early 2000s Kramnik opened with e4 probably 70% of his games. However, he started switching to d4 by mid-decade and the 2006 World Championship match he didn't open with e4 at all.

I kind of agree, d4 is used more at the grandmaster level because nobody wants to face a Sicilian.

I think the more professional you get the less of e4 you're gonna see.

>implying the Sicilian isn't the single most played opening at GM level.
People play d4 because they like d4 games you fucking retard. That actually happens, I hope you realize, and just because your incest-born brain can't figure out how to play a positional game doesn't mean other people can't.

>and just because your incest-born brain can't
Projecting much?

I wasn't the one who said something so retarded as
>Durr, GMs only play d4 because they don't want to face a sicilian

Do you have a better explanation other than incest born retardation for why someone would say something so phenomenally stupid?

The 2016 world championship match between Carlsen and Karjakin had 13 of its 16 games start with 1. e4. The Giuoco Piano even made two appearances.

It's not the only reason but it certainly is a factor because it does get old fast when you start a game with 1. e4 and want to get a Ruy Lopez or somesuch and end up getting a Sicilian again and again and again.

You're not helping prove your case that you're not an incest-tard. Have you ever actually met a GM? They look at the game as a combination of work, striving towards an absolute objective Truth with a capital T, and bloody-minded competition. They don't care about "oh look, it's another Sicilian" if they have a good winning percentage as white against Sicilians. It's all about a win/loss/draw calculation, as well as trying to improve their game as objectively as they can.

If you see a GM consistently opening with 1.d4, I can fucking guarantee you it's not because he's sick in some aesthetic sense about seeing Sicilians. It's because he really and truly likes the sorts of positions he gets out of d4, probably because he's the sort of guy who prefers to grind down in endgames with slight positional advantages accruing more and more weight over time, of which there are plenty of. Because SUR-FUCKING-PRISE, there are actual advantages to playing d4.

The whole problem with e4 openings in general is that they tend to lead to a crazy, slam-bang tactical shootout. Grandmasters generally like the d4 openings better because they're more positional, safe, and give you the ability to either convert a subtle advantage into a win or draw the game if desired. The Ruy Lopez is the only e4 e5 opening you'll see much at the top levels of chess because it usually produces a closed game.

GMs will play e4 openings when they're hungry for a win, but most of the time d4 is preferred so you can have the option of a draw. The Sicilian especially is very sharp and tactical, so when you're not seeking that kind of game, you want to open with d4 and avoid it entirely. It's more about reliability and the buisiness side of the game then style or anything else.

You do realize that both e4 and d4 have a 30.6% white win rate among GM games, right?

It is true that a lot of GMs don't seriously try to win when playing the Black pieces. Conventional wisdom tends to hold that White always has an intrinsic advantage due to first move, so when playing Black, they try to go for a draw.

Could you actually stick to the point at hand, or is that too much for your tiny brain? How does the conventional wisdom of black playing to draw affect whether or not white selects e4 or d4? Are you some kind of trained parrot, that just spits out prepackaged rants when you hear something vaguely relevant but without understanding what you're actually saying?

Seriously, I'll probably regret hearing this, but what the FUCK went through your brain that you thought your post was a coherent response to what I said? How do you go from

>Wait a second, both e4 and d4 have equal rates of winning when white plays them, just differerent paths
to
>I better talk about how most GMs play black to draw!

There's no such thing as a tactical or positional opening, it all depends on the variation used. You can easily get a Sicilian Defense that turns into a tactical shootout or a slow grindfest. You can get tactical games in a lot of Queen's Gambit lines. There are open Ruy Lopez variations and closed ones, and so on.

Even the dreaded Latvian Gambit gets positional in the main line (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.d4 d6 5.Nc4 fxe4 6.Nc3 Qb6 7.f3 exf3 8.Qxf3 Nf6 followed by 9...Qg4 and a trade of Queens, and yet everyone thought that the Latvian is nothing but a shootout).

When a chess book describes the French Defense as a positional opening and the King's Gambit as a tactical opening, it merely refers to the likelihood that you'll get those kinds of games compared to other openings. Thus, the French usually produces a closed game and the KG an open game, but there's no cut-and-dry rule that it has to be that.

It seems nowadays that the Berlin and Schleimann Defenses of the Ruy Lopez are more popular than the Sicilian Defense or Indian Defenses.

Case in point. The '16 WC match had not a single Indian or Sicilian in it, the games were all Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano, and Queen's Gambit variants. Compare that to the WC matches between Karpov, Korchnoi, and Kasparov in the 70s-80s where 80% of the games were the Indian Defenses or English Opening. You have to remember that that shit was 30-40 years ago, playing styles and fashionable openings have changed since then.

Karpov was an e4 guy in the 70s, by the mid-80s he started mainly opening with d4 and c4.

I gotta say, it's nice that recent WC matches are a little bit shorter and don't have the endless boring draws like in the 80s.