What is the status of 1.e4 e5 in 2021?

i have played mostly 1.e4 e5 but im alot on twitch, and i see very few of the 2000+ rated streamers play 1.e4 e5 and i heard some of them say its alot of work to play. This makes me think maybe i should abandon the opening.

Eric Rosen plays it to get the stafford gambit and while i believe its a great blitzweapon i think if i show up playing the stafford consistenly in a club i think it will only bring me trouble when they know what is coming. I have seen players like Alireza and Hammer play it with great success but they are extremely much stronger than me who will aim for maximum CM/FM or give up before i get there.

Any views are welcome expecially if you are a titled or close since the lack of strong players playing this opening is what makes me doubt

I mean, when I watched the Opera Euro Rapid, They played an insane amount of 1...e5

Yes thats my impression that players like Wesley So and those guys can handle 1.e4 e5 well while on twitch everyone i see around titled strenght got there by other means than 1.e4 e5

I don't know man.. You can check OTB databases between CMs and FMs, I think you'll probably find that 1.e5 is quite common even there. About twitch streamers, chess.com has a database for online games, if you want you can see how many times e5 is played by the streamers you're following.. 

By the way it seems you're scoring really well with 1...e5

The jury is still out.

Popularity evolution of 1.e4 e5, in percentage (%) of games per year (from 1840 to 2021), read in my Scid vs PC database of 4.804.466 games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eebnBP5XFVc

this video was from a chessbase article, i don't know where you get this graph, but the results are very different. https://en.chessbase.com/post/popularity-of-chess-openings-over-time

1. ...e5 is great, but there is a lot of theory (then so does 1. ... c5 that I play). Weaker players play it because it seems like the most natural move, super GM-s play it because they know the theory and are comfortable with it, and it serves the purpose for them. That is why perhaps strong amateurs in some cases play something else. They do not want to bother with the so much theory so they play something else.

The important thing for you is this. Are you satisfied with your play as black and positions you get? If the answer is mainly yes, then you shouldn't switch your opening choice just because some famous streamer doesn't play 1. e4 e5. If not, you can opt for something else.

After all you have all your life to gradually build up your theory and you are already 2 000+ player here, so you must be doing something right.

ChessGames.com database is smaller 982.000 games but more to the higher ranked games. Mine is bigger and more diverse.

this is just otb tournament games though, i don't know about casual games, online games, amateur games etc. etc. 

After many centuries 1. e4 e5 is still the cutting edge of the open game. I would advise my juniors to stick to it until they reached a FIDE rating of 2000. The Fried Liver Attack question is still unanswered. Is it ok to play 4. Ng5? A bottomless pit perhaps.

yeah but the OP was asking about FM level i think... imho e5, c5, e6 and c6 are just equally good. it's just a matter of trend sometimes... am i wrong?

Its true i have been doing good with 1.e4 e5. You can get suprisingly far not really knowing theory but putting a knight on c6 and f6 and going for that d5 break. Around 2000 online rating tho the opening doesnt really matter at all . Im gonna do my best to reach a title in chess and i suspect i have to know my openings much deeper now on my road to CM. Anyway thanks for opinions guys  Food for thought

What's your Fide rating?

i dont even think i have one. i have barely played chess irl. I had big plans becoming very active OTB but then Covid and you guys know the rest

One thing that really did made me doubt 1.e4 e5 was Simon Williams on a chessimprovement DVD he made claim that 1.e4 e5 is too much work and you shouldnt play it, and he recommended the french, black lion and stuff like that, but it just isnt my taste

well, good luck on your journey, i wish you the best!

But before playing fide rated games, you should try to see if Norway has a chess federation that gives the National Master title, I think it's a little easier to obtain than the Candidate master one... in italy we have the FSI ( Federazione scacchistica italiana) that gives the NM title when you reach an elo of 2200. 

it's not that i'm an expert though, i'm relatively a beginner.. i subscribed in that federation and then Covid happened lol