In the recent World Championship tournament, White opened 1.e4 25 times. In 21 of those games, Black resonded 1…e5. It's not that long ago that in about 21 of 25 games, Black would play 1…c5. And among the 1.e4 games, the Ruy Lopez (Spanish Opening) is not nearly as ubiquitous as it would have been from 1890 through 1980.

Overall, it seems that fashion in openings has returned to the 1860s.

Will it move to the Italian Opening later?

We do get some Bishop's Opening (2.Bc4 as an anti-Petroff (Russian)) games that essentially turn into Italian (Giuoco Piano/Pianissimo) games. But once move 2 has gone 2.Nf3,Nc6, the most common alternative to the Spanish is the Scotch these days.

An excellent chess opening move, and one that has been played with success by beginners and Grandmasters throughout chess history! It might be just one small pawn move, but by playing 1.e4 White accomplishes much.

he he he…so primitive

Really? 1.e4? Doesn't that expose the White King a little bit?

I kind of like 1.a4 so I can get my queen rook into the game as fast as possible.

Anand is a King pawn player, and the new champion of the world. Kramnik is a Queen pawn player, and kept getting draws with white until it was too late. Anand's King pawn opening was aggressive and netted him some nice wins while other players were only drawing with the Queen Pawn.

The Queen pawn opening was still the most popular opening in the tournament, but there were several King Pawn Marshall Gambits (Marshall “Attacks”) of the Ruy Lopez (aka Spansih) which I was very glad to see. These were exciting battles, and white did very well in these Marshall openings.

Since David mentioned it, I agree that is was very strange that there were so few Sicilians (I can't even recall any Sicilians?) But this is probably due to the repetoire of the specific players. The Sicilian is far from dead, just look how poorly black did in the games that started 1.e4 e5.

By far and large the number one defense to the Queen's pawn was the Slav defense. The Slav is notorious as being very “drawish” and that means it is a good choice for a round robin type event where you try to win with white and draw with black. The Slav is not necessarily a good choice in a weekend swiss style tournament where one needs to win nearly every game regardless of color.