What is the point of the QGD?

After scoring poorly in the KID and Benko as Black, I decided to switch to a Slav/Semi-Slav repertoire, and it’s been going really well. I really like it. Similarly, I switched to 1. d4, tired of all the Philidor, Owen’s, Pirc sideline, Old Steinitz, and Caro-Kann players. I immediately started enjoying chess more and scoring much better. There’s just one problem though. I don’t understand the QGD ideas for Black, so I just… play solid, developing chess and win. Is that all there is to it? Simple, straightforward chess where White just has a large advantage from the start?

Can’t beat them, join them!

I abandoned e4 when I crossed 1200 and never looked back.

e4 will always hold a special place in my heart, and will probably still be a secondary especially for OTB rapid for a long time to come, but one can only play so many Exchange Philidor games before giving up hope of playing just one French. Or Alekhine’s. Or Nimzowitsch. Or a Sicilian that isn’t a pale imitation of the Najdorf or Dragon. Or a Ruy Lopez that isn’t an Old Steinitz. It’s rough out there.

Unfortunately there are still system players in the d4 pool as well, but thankfully they all play the Englund, which is +3 by move 6, so hey, at least the low effort opening has a low effort refutation. And then there’s some weirdos who play the Marshall QGD, which is like the Busch-Gass but worse, so hey, I’ll take it.

I hear e4 is always recommended but it has too much theory for little enjoyment you can get but disappointingly, I know many people stuck at a rating.

I'm guessing you mean Queen's Gambit Declined. I know it and I can show most if not all of the theory. It's usually used when you want more center space, but sometimes people wonder if they accept it. If they do that, you eventually win it back. Even if they try to hold on to the pawn, normal moves like e4 already start an attack while they have to stop their development to hang on. Also you can trade that pawn and even though you're down a pawn, you still have the advantage and can play fancy tactics like a cool en passant one. Plus with the Queen's Gambit Declined you usually end up winning the game (according to my statistics on Queen's Gambit Declined) or at least winning.

I mean, you can play b6, Bb7 and c5, that’s an option.

Something like this? I don’t really know tbh, I don’t play the QG as white lol

I feel your pain on the e4 thing, lol. I can only take so many Czech Pircs, Old Steinitzes (luckily they tend to fall for Tarrasch Trap at least). I started playing Queens Gambit myself recently. Problem is when they try to be cute and go for Horwitz defense. You can't even figure out what are they gonna go for.

Well, maybe if Black doesn't know what he's doing.

If Black plays well, White should have a hard time finding much of anything.

You mentioned that you play the Semi-Slav, so you must have some understanding of the QGD ... because the Semi-Slav actually is the QGD, just with an early ...c6. (In other variations of the QGD, black delays the development of his c-pawn until later. Sometimes it goes to ...c6 at a different point. In other lines, it goes to ...c5 in one go.)

If you want to get a better understanding of the QGD - check out the 13th World Championship match (1927), between Capablanca and Alekhine. It was a Queen's Gambit Declined spectacle.

Out of 34 games, 32 of them were QGD.

@Ethan_Brollier

i too allways and only get exchange philodors,steinitz ruy lopez´s, and lowerenthawl sicilians

the only way to improve is to completely learn those variations that you commonly see so your comfortable with them

i play the semi-duras against the old steinitz and know all the ways black can go wrong

you can go for an english setup agianst the exchange philordor and learn to master that

you can play c4 in the lowerenthawl before retreating your knight on b5 and learn all the plans and manuvers for white

learn what you commonly see the most the best, main lines are rarely seen even at my level

the people at our level are jokes not to be taken seriously, dont take them seriously