suggestions for openings for black against e4

Right now I play 1…e5, and 2. Nf3 Nc6. I’ve played the French before, but I found myself not liking a lot of the positions I got. Great opening, but not for me, though I might give it another try one day. I’ll definitely pick up the Rubinstein French when I turn 60. I don’t have any interest in other openings except for the Sicilian. I think it would be a shame to play chess and never play a Sicilian. Someday I’ll learn Najdorf and/or Sveshnikov.

Scandinavian defense?

The Sicilian Defense is a popular response to 1. e4, creating an unbalanced game with rich tactical and strategic possibilities as Black fights for central control by preparing to play d5 later.

You could try the Sicilian Dragon!

It’s totally attacking all the time in main lines!

I play the caro kann and it works pretty well for me. E5 is probably better to be honest but I started the caro when I was a lower rated player and just stuck with it. I’m pretty confident I’ll get a good game of chess in any variation even against 2000+ players at this point because I’ve played it over 1100 times as black. One thing that helped my caro game was learning all the trappy aggressive openings and the advance well. You MUST know how to play the fantasy, two knights attack, tal, and panov attack or you will lose many games before move 20. I’m liking the botvinnik carlsen reply to the advance as well, I used to play the short system. But ya, you need to study openings if you want to progress with the caro kann or you’re just going to have terrible positions and get mated quickly.

Thanks for all the replies. I have decided to play the sicillian. Im not sure I will get the best results but I seem to be enjoying so far

The Four Knights is a good sicilian to learn first. You have alot of piece activity due to developing the 2 knights / opening up the kingside bishop early. So if the opponent mishandles it, which they often do, you can just pin the knight on c3 with your bishop, and push d5 early. Usually once d5 has been played black is doing well in the sicilian.

Taimanov w/ a6 is another good one... Similar story although a little more positional, but a6 prevents Ndb5 and supports Qc7 in these lines.