1. e4 e5 2. Qf3

What are some good ways for Black to really punish White, who likes to weild his Queen (and Bishops too) early, with gusto, going for an early mate?

This person is around my level I guess (1300-1400 turn-based), but he is very dangerous (to me anyway) with the Queen (and sometimes Bishops added in) early and has put me in danger of being mated early. I'd like to at least defend, but punsh would be better.

Thanks.

Come on C_M! This is what I keep telling you...Playing skill steps in where 'theory' falters.

There's no 'line' to punish this....punish him for playing a mediocre move the same way you should at move 30.

WHY is it mediocre? What problems has he caused himself? What opportunities can you work with?

He hasn't done enough wrong to lose the game, he's done enough wrong to lose white's opening advantage.

I'm not going to give you any real ideas for this position....go play better chess than him and you will win! ;)

Genius: Why are you quoting "line?" Who asked for a specific "line?" And even if I did (which I didn't), don't act as if that is an absurd question. You are only embarassing yourself by being patronizing.

That's good advice! "Go play better chess than him and you will win." I didn't think of that strategy or technique. You must be at least an International Master. (Rolls eyes.)

Yes, there cannot be an articulated strategy to punish a certain move or sequence of moves. That's impossible. No line will suffice either (although I didn't say I required something with that specificity.)

Next.

Not sure why my post upset you so much. And don't especially appreciate your aggression.

I wasn't being patronizing. When your opponent makes a move that doesn't seem good but can't immediately be refuted, you hunker down, figure out WHY it's not good and play good chess to take advantage of it. That's all I said. If you WEREN'T looking for general advice and WEREN'T looking for variations, then I guess you were looking for someone to tell you that his Queen COULD become exposed (if you play to make it so) and that the queen has taken his king's knight's best square away....but frankly Chicken_Monster figuring out things like that is what the game of chess is all about...and if you can't see that then improving your general level of play is more important than all these opening threads you've started. Yes..play better than him if you want to punish him. SIMPLE. NEXT.

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There's no answer to this question. White throws away two tempo, it's as simple as that. Just hit the queen at some point with your knights or bishops and it will have to move. In the above game he played c3 trying to avoid that, which loses tempo itself.   

Olympian, some analysis I did for that position. It's probably drawn. 

Here is the game, with me as Black. I almost got mated. He was up a pawn at one point and I caught up. My friend finally resigned because I was (barely) finally able to neutralize his Queen and he was upset. (Old friend from high school.) I'm a bit better now than when this game was played, but still. I was one move from being mated at one point.

Get your bishop to c5 so you can play d5 with the threat of Bg4 winning the knight if he plays it to e2.  He'll never see it coming.

Well, he'll see it coming if he reads this post now.

Inch and petrip are correct, and they are not being patronizing. That is just standard chess wisdom: that an out-of-book move merely requires some logical and analytical thinking to fill in the (necessary) gaps in opening books. An opening book cannot contain every move if it is a physical book, out of sheer practicality of size, and not every weak or bad move has an immediate refutation. The most popular response to Napoleon's Opening here is 2...Nf6.

----------

(p. 1)
   An apt illustration occurs in
deviations from "book". A game
begins with 1 e4 f6. The reply is
bad, so bad in fact that it will
not be found in any collection of
standard opening moves. What to
do about it? The man who has
memorized oodles and oodles of
moves without understanding
them is at a loss; he will not even
be able to give a good reason why
the move is bad. But the man who
knows that Black has neglected
the centre, deprived his KN of its
best square, and weakened his
King position will find it a simple
matter to refute his opponent's
faulty play.

Fine, Reuben. 1989. The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, Algebraic Edition. New York: Random House, Inc.

CM,

I understand the issue with early queen raids.  I looked at the game, and I'm not saying my analysis is perfect but here are some ideas.

Now this is why I keep telling you to read Mastering Opening Strategy.  It tells you EXACTLY how to deal with this kind of problem in Chapter 2: Crime and Punishment, under the heading, Early Queen Raids.  What you do is you harrass the queen which allows you to gain tempo, thus developing your pieces while he keeps having to get his queen out of danger.  The other main issue, as I mentioned in the game, is not to castle into the queen's path.  You also don't want to castle on the same side of the board as your opponent's pieces are poised to attack.  This is talked about in Attacking the King.

Thanks for taking the time to do that, Senchean.

That's what I call a helpful and thoughtful post. I appreciate it.

NP.  Hope it helps.

The trick is, whenever they make a move, look at the new squares it attacks. If it attacks an undefended pawn or threatens mate, then defend that pawn or defend against mate.

Otherwise keep developing and castle.

That's about it.

Makes sense. I don't know why he gives me problems when I play him...it's personal to me since we have a friendly rivalry since high school and he taught be basics of chess...opening principles etc.

In Karate there is something known as Sempai syndrome.  A Sempai is a sernior student who helps the Sensei with teaching.  Well, sometimes younger students will always have trouble executing techniques against their Sempai regardless of how good they become because the Sempai was the one who taught them so there is a psychological block which prevents the younger student from doing well against him.  This same thing can happen in chess.

Yes. That interesting. I don't believe that is the case here though (unless it is subconscious)....because when I play him I feel like doing a step-spinning hook kick to his head! Nah, but that's how I feel about Internet trolls.

Social psychology [the study of the nature and cause of an individual's behavior in a social setting] is fascinating to me, and some of it applies to chess I'm sure. I believe Fischer may have famously said that he didn't believe in [chess] psychology, he just believed in "good moves." Something to that effect.

However, I'm pretty sure that psychology plays a role at the higher levels of chess (from talking to expert players I know) for many players. In this case, although my friend and I aren't strong players and the game was of no real consequence except inside our own minds, it is noteworthy that he resigned as soon as I thwarted his Queen mate attempt and caught up in material. He texted me "honeslty, this is getting tedious." I would have to bug him to make moves after that point. Finally he said, "our cleaning lady moved my board and I don't know the set-up (he used a real board to keep track). I said it was no problem because I had the moves recorded on my computer.

Before that point in the game, he was constantly pinging me throughout the day to hurry up and move, because he was, up until that point, pushing me around as he did back in high school (pushing me around at chess, not other things). Now he is recalcitrant to play me again because he knows I have improved recently and may be better.  He has "chickened" out.

If someone is getting pushy for you to make moves, use it against them and play slower.  so long as it doesn't cost you the game on time, it can cause them to make a mistake or resign.  And that is still a win.  And it does sound like he chickened out.

Ley's look at some of the downsides of Qf3:

1.  White blocks the best square for his knight-f3
2. The only reason for playing Qf3 is to attack the f7 pawn, but it can be easily guarded. Thus, the queen will be misplaced.

Here are some plans for black:

• He can maybe play Nc6-d4 attacking both the queen and threatining Nxc2+, forcing the queen to a bad square.
• He can win a tempo by playing Nf6-d6 (d5)-Bg4.
• He can open the center by playing d5 at some point, making use of white's lack of coordination.