What about players who play both d4 and e4? Don't know if they should attack or play solid? Poor schizophrenic fools? ;-)
You can attack with 1. g3 and play smooth with 1. e4. No need to decide this on move 1.
The things chess makes you do to get a win from 1.d4 if you are reading the positions well are different from the things chess makes you do to win from 1. e4. I would go further and say that 1.e4 can often be weighted more towards time, and 1.d4 is more often weighted toward piece quality.
Since there are definitely different styles of play in chess, this shouldn't be too hard to generally accept - though a skilled player can guide the game from either first move into their own style of play.
#8 "Because Morphy played e4." I think there might actually be something in this! Or at least, it seems like it might go back to the early 20th Century when e4 was associated with the Evan's Gambit and rollicking romantic chess, and the Queen's Gambit was associated with the exchange variation and minority attacks and an endgame wins?
These days it seems a lot more complicated. 1 d4 can lead you into the King's Indian (#2 - tactics are "near impossible in closed positions" - really?) or all sorts of Noteboom or Meran Variation weirdness, whereas e4 is often played for some slow, manoeuvring game in the Ruy or the Giuoco Piano. Kasparov is maybe the most aggressive, dynamic player of recent years and he played d4 more than e4.
e4 is just as "positional" as d4. They just tend to lead to different styles of games.
In my own experience I would say that d4 is deemed more "positional" due to the fact that more games get played on the queenside (maneuvering and outplaying your opponent in positional/strategical ways) as where e4 games tend to revolved a lot more around the center and the Kingside. That being said, I can also confirm that I get plenty of very nice attacking (attacking the King) games while playing d4. As
@DrHack says here its more about what you want or can do with the opening that matters and how you can steer it towards what kinds of positions you like or what kind of chess you like. Some openings are very clear cut about what they are trying to achieve and favor some type of players a lot more, where as d4 I feel is a bit more dynamic and can give you a wider range of positions (or styles that you can force onto these openings) to mess with.
I didn't know that 1d4 is considered a positional move, and however, why should I believe that it is positional, tactic or whatever name you want to call it? 1d4 is just a move.
Because Kings are more agressive than Queens or something along those lines
@swimmerBill said in #10:
> Aery's comment is very good. Often against e4 players it is good idea top pick defenses that slow the central struggle and against d4 players to pick ones that sharpen it. This is another over generalization of course but there may be something in it.
Lol, i play 1.-d5 against 1.- e4. I dont think its about slowing the central struggle. Just outright destroy the opponent's plans altogether.
With d5 you don't destroy any plan. There is no plan when white plays his first move. To make a valid plan it is important to know what the opponent is up to do. When you play your first move with white you have no clue what black might play.
You do what you are used to do first - you don't think about any plan.
Maybe you would be right when you claim that the Scandi is an opening many e4- players are not that keen to play. But with no good reason. A well prepared sicilian player is much more dangerous than a Scandi-player. But the Scandi has its merits of course - when white not really know what to do it is fun to play. If white know what he does and satisfied with a draw its somewhat difficult to get the full point, that's the main reason that this in my arsenal, but not the first weapon i pick with black.
