Any creative or fun ideas against the Scandinavian Defense?

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Avatar of Samurai-X

Many opponents play it. I just develop naturally.

Avatar of Buckskinjer

One idea is to send your general into the battle. Many soldiers when going out onto the field to play chess are in low spirits. I remember going out onto the feild and seing peoples arms and legs blown off because they had lost the match. The worst parts was when women and children that werent even part of the conflic end up dead because the chess match got too intense. Women, children, babies, young boys not even of age. Dead. This is a large tragedy that we could avoid if we just played the game casually insead of going to war over the country that plays the game better on average. Stop the savagery.

Avatar of eaguiraud

Resign

Avatar of Pulpofeira

1. d4!!

Avatar of macer75

Here's an idea that's creative AND fun:



Avatar of imsighked2

You could answer 1. e4 d5 with 2. d4 and transpose to the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit.

Avatar of A1Rajjpuut

For Real Fun . . . 2. d4!!!!

        The very best and most enjoyable Idea against the Scandanavian is to answer 1. e4 d5 with 2.d4 dxe4 3. Nc3 igniting the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (which usually occurs after 1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3). After 3. ... Nf6 4. f3 exf3 you have your choice of several exciting variations: I favor the normal Nxf3;  or the hyper-aggressive Qxf3 sometimes called the Ryder Gambit.  But IF you'd rather not move your pawn to f3 than 4. Bg5 the Von Popeil Gambit is another really daring line!  So that makes three very enjoyable lines. By the way the advice above about sending your King into battle is sheer lunacy as the televised game David Letterman vs. Gari Kasparov showed by ending in three moves after 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Ke2???

Try the BDG it's fun! Good luck!!

Avatar of Clavius
Avatar of aidan0816

As others have suggested, the blackmar-deimer gambit with 2.d4 is a creative response to the Scandinavian.  A lot of people (myself included) play the Scandinavian because it is rather off beat and can trip up opponents who haven't studied it too much.  While the gambit, is quite unsound, it can be quite devastating on low time controls or over the board, especially if you have closely studied the theory and your opponent has no idea what they are doing.  I wouldn't play it on very long time controls or in correspondence chess, since it is definitely an unsound opening.

Another interesting try is responding with 2. e5, which will generally (at least when I have played it) transition into a variation of the French defense.  The only issue with doing this is that black gets a slightly improved situation from the normal French since her bishop won't end up trapped behind the pawn on e6.  So you can go for that if you want, but you will be worse off than if you just go down the standard Scandi lines.

Aside from these two options, there really isn't anything worth doing aside from the normal 2. exd5 move in the Scandinavian.  After this, the scandinavian branches in a few different ways.  There is the more common 2... Qxd5 which I never play and can't help you with and 2... Nf6, which leads to both the modern variation and the Portuguese gambit (along with the Icelandic Gambit, Panov-Botvinik attack and other stuff).