The Scotch Game

Hello everyone and welcome back to Aviation18's Chess Corner! I apologise for the lack of blog posts recently, so I will compensate for those blog posts not written.

The Scotch Game is a popular chess opening, that is the preferred opening of many chess players. Household names like Garry Kasparov and Jan Timman, Russian and Dutch grandmasters respectively, often used the Scotch Game to good effect, to stamp out the Ruy Lopez. White starts off with E4, black responds with E5. White attempts to attack the E5 pawn with Knight F3, black tries to attack the E4 pawn with Knight C6. White pushes its queen pawn to D4-forcing black to trade its knight or its pawn, or both. You can find the position below: