1. e4 Nc6

Well, today in a live game I played 2. Nf3, and the game transposed into a Center-counter game.

Playing d4 is often their preparation, planing e5, d5, Ne7, Nf3, Ng6. this is blacks theory and you shouldn't let them play it.

He’s now had eight years to prepare against it so you’d hope he’d be alright. 

What?

This was posted July 2, 2011

Chess, just like life.  It helps to pay attention.

No, JamesColeman said that a day ago

Chess is like life. It helps to make sense

Whos James Coleman?

Scroll up.

Ill pass...

Well if you are Ill then I'll let it pass.

Hilarious.

Wwwwwwwwww

1.nc6 is the rare offbeat opening where the court of public opinion has sided with "try to force black to go back to mainline " over "lets try to refute it". This is very surprising. because objectively 1.e4 nc6 2.d4 d5 (or even e5) is not quite objectively on par with 1.e4 nc6 2.nf3 e5 transposing to a scotch, italian or ruy lopez most likely.

2.d4 is fine but plays into blacks game. whereas 2.nf3 is asking black to either return to more established theory or from whites point of view transpose to an inferior version of another opening.

and there is some merit to the idea, moves like 2.nf3 d5?! and 2.nf3 nf6?! arent very convincing if you follow the critical lines and the colorado gambit is refuted. The original way Tony miles played the declined nimzowitsch going d6, nf6 bg4,(going for bh5 if h3) and e6-d5 has sadly been refuted although it is not well known anymore.

black can play 2..e6 and play for a sort of rozentalis french (with c3 instead of nc3) where he plays early f6 and usually castles 0-0-0. It is playable although a bit of an acquired taste. The best line for black is probably the nimzo-pirc, where black goes 2.d6 and plays it like a king's indian with the added advantage that if white goes d5, the knight is on c3 so no early c4. This is surprisingly sound. Its like entering a pirc where both sides made early commitments, black to nc6 so no c6-b5, but white by playing nf3 cant play the dangerous austrian attack or the 150 attack (e4 d4, nc3, be3,qd2,f3 0-0-0)