2. Nc3 lines

Hello. I have recently started playing the Alekhine's Defense regularly, and I love it! But I have one question for you...

I find that often as not, white declines to chase my knight with 2. e5, rather playing 2. Nc3 instead.

What line(s) do you favor against this? I suppose one option is to bone up on your Vienna Game, and transpose into that with 2. e5.

As of now, I am more inclined to play the Scandinavian variation with 2. d4.

What do you think?

2. Nc3 is the Scandinavian variation of Alekhine's Defense, usually played when the white player isn't confident with his 2. e5 lines.  Generally, he's hoping that you'll play 2...e5 and bring him back into more familiar territory. I prefer 2...d5 as well, as my theoretical knowledge of what comes afterward is generally larger than that of my opponent.

Black has very little choice in the matter after 2. ...d5.  Most of the game after that is dictated by what white plays.  Generally, you end up in one of a couple positions. 

I also play 2. ... d5 leading to the position below. Or play 2. ... d6 and transpose to Pirc. It's a matter or taste really... I don't like French-like positions so I've never played like marcol mentioned.

Alekhine sacerfices tempos, to later on con

Thanks for the input. I'm playing in my first OTB tournament this weekend, and I'm hoping to catch some people by surprise and get them out of their game with the Alekhine's Defense. If I get to use it, and it goes either particularly well or particularly poorly, I'll post the game here.

Oops!  Forgot this one.  this variation is definitely solid, and I"ve seen it used in games at the higher levels.  I tend to shy away from it because of its positional simplicity, but that's just a matter of taste.   After the pawns make their journeys, the position isn't noticeably different from the start position.  The board is wide open, almost symmetrical and development has proceeded normally for both sides, with white one step ahead.  If I wanted to play a position like that, I would have just gone ahead with 1...e5! 

But again, that's all a matter of personal preference.

Good luck on Friday!  Go ahead and post it even if it's not particularly good or bad -I'd like to take a look, if you don't mind.

There is a good video on chessvideos about this line

It's probably a bit late, but I figured that I might toss in a bit of my own experience (or lack thereof) into this thread.

I think that whether you should play 2...d5 and 2...e5 is a matter of taste. I have not played an Alekhine where my opponent played 2.Nc3 in a long time. In fact, I don't think anyone has played 2.Nc3 against me on chess.com! That's notable because in my 4 OTB games (I know that's a very small sample), not one of them played 2.e5! 3 of them were 2.Nc3 lines, which at the time, I had no knowledge of and so, lost all three of them and the other one was the 2.Bc4 line, which I believe was referred to as the Krejcik Gambit (don't confuse with another gambit with the same name) somewhere. It's such a rare line and I was caught off-guard by it. Despite the fact that I misplayed it I still almost defeated my opponent rated more than 600 points above me (I blundered in the endgame and lost). For those interested, here's the game:

Howdy all! Just joined this group, simply because I love this opening! I also have the book by Taylor, where he suggests playing 2..e5. But I don't really like it. I've had in OTB around 4 times, and it always ends up in some 4knights bore.

I am considering playing 2..d5 again, like I always used to. And then take the following variations. If white takes on d5 I always like Nxd5 Bc4 Nb6 Bb3 and then...c5!? which complicates things a bit if white wants to win a pawn with Qa5. On other moves you're just good as black.

If white plays e5 my favorite is Ne4, although it's not as clear cut, because white gets a lot of options, including the ridiculous Ne2 d4 c3 xc3 bxc3, where black needs to play Nc5 d4 Na6 and reroute his pieces for a while. But it seems playable.

Anyway, let's hope white tests our great opening by just playing 2.e5 a lot!!