english opening

How do i tame the english opening?

1. ...c6.

will definately try that..

I was wondering the same. I used to play the French/Dutch againt e/d4 and against the English I was using 1...f5 going into some unbalanced Dutch formation. I didn't really played any specific lines.

Recently I switched from the Dutch to what some call the Bogo-Indian or the Franco-Indian with 1.d4e6. So I was wondering if I could meet c4 with e6 too and get into something similar to those or French positions. It was a nice surprise when searching my gamebase that e6 was not only playable but a good move too. c4 scores 55-45% (white-black) and c4e6 scores 56-44%. It doesn't seem to be fundamentally bad and known GMs have used it. I have 13408 games with that (both players ELO 2200+ and 10+ moves long).

I haven't looked into it more carefuly yet. I have other priorities, but from a quick scroll I got that white usually replies with (in order of frequency) Nf3, Nc3, g3, d4, e4, b3 and black should reply d5. I don't know if there s a name for that.

I think we could use the opinion of an English expert.

I play 1...c6 and hope for a Slav or the 2. c4 variation of the caro-kann ; both of which I know theory for.