If your opponent plays Nc6 without first playing c5 then the best way to take advantage is by playing d4 to stop them from playing e5. If they can't play e5 or c5 then Black will often struggle to find a plan while White's position is very easy to play. You can follow up with normal moves like 0-0, c4, Nc3 etc. If Black ever takes on c4 then you usually recover the pawn with Qa4 or Nbd2 depending on the position. Here are some opening traps that have won me many blitz/rapid games:
@Vicariously-I Thanks! I'll review and try it out. The explanation and examples are helpful.
Thanks to V for posting these useful lines. I have used the first one myself often. I agree with what is said here. I keep an eye on the e5 square during the early phases of the KIA, and I will jump ship to using d4 if my opponent tries to prepare the pawn thrust e5 early.
Just played over the last trap again. That is very cool. Strong work, well done!
NJ_Greg, for your information wormrose and I gave answers to a similar older post (here: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/2-nc6-kia ).
Should it be useful to you, you can see on the diagram that I posted there my relatively simple way of dealing with ...d5, ...Nc6, ...e5-type of positions and the different center pawn-structure that may arise from it. I don't think the Black Bishop in c5 makes a big difference.
How do you guys like to deal with the sort of line shown below - where Black just makes standard, classical developing moves?
I do see that databases and engines tend to suggest playing, earlier, d4 or c4, which transpose (e.g. to an English or QGA/QGD/Catalan.
I also see that if you do get to the position below, results tend to favor black, and that 6.c3 or 6.Nxe5 (a theme I've seen before with the B developed to the forth (for white) or fifth (for black) rank) seem best.
What do you guys like?