studying it today, nothing looks that threatening yet, and it's hard to remember some of the moves when they change. i might not end up playing this afterall and might go back to center game theory.
i'm totally sticking with the falkbeer though. that line has sharp teeth it isn't afraid to use right away
NOPE! not for me! that it's named after Nimzowitsch himself should have been a warning. in much of the theory, black wastes THREE tempi on his queen's knight and i hate the looks of all the pawn chaining. it's exactly the kind of misery i'm trying to end with the stonewall.
i don't care how good the stats are. i want open games and rapid development. this looks to have neither. it might appeal to stonewallers who hate OPEN games and karpovs, but not this gambiteer.
NOPE! not for me! that it's named after Nimzowitsch himself should have been a warning. in much of the theory, black wastes THREE tempi on his queen's knight and i hate the looks of all the pawn chaining. it's exactly the kind of misery i'm trying to end with the stonewall.
i don't care how good the stats are. i want open games and rapid development. this looks to have neither. it might appeal to stonewallers who hate OPEN games and karpovs, but not this gambiteer.
the stonewall and e5 nimzowitsch have almost nothing in common. You seeing closed pawn chains and claiming they are similar but thats literally where the similarities end. In these lines, white gets more space, but blacks pieces often end up in great squares (the c5 bishop can be a monster and two of your knights are waiting to pounce on white's kingside. )
I'm so done with the scandinavian which i've wanted to dump for decades because of that hideous french/sicilian forcing advance variation, but ESPECIALLY after doing a bit of research training in the counter gambit to the king's gambit, the falkbeer (1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5!?) and saw so much FUN in those lines, many of which felt like comfy old slippers compared the positional pebbles in my scandinavian dress shoes so to speak. many of the early tactics in that line are no brainers.
looking into a 1.e4 e5 repertoire, I finally cobbled my 2.d4 theory if not looked for transpositions to the rest of my repertoire. looking at amateur games from 1600-2000, this is the strongest base i can build for scotch territory until the day i might decide to try 2 knights/marshall, but as a king's gambiteer, i'm loving early ...f5!? lines.
i'm hoping this proves to be a nice head start for other gambiteers trying to build open repertoires as info on what's aggressive and what's GM approved toothless is hard to come by, but performance stats don't lie.
the theory's organized with popularity deciding the main lines and not evaluations as those are the ones you'll see the most. i generally stop digging when a line shows up less than 1 time in 5 of the most popular line, but have been loosening up on that rule for the earliest moves. if two moves perform very similar, i'll go with the one that stockfish thinks is clearly better, that has the fewest number of replies to study with a preference for lines that continue several moves or that i just like better myself eg. i really like knight to f asap generally and hate pawn pushes and fianchettos.
the ratios are white to black wins from how big a sampling and + evaluations favor white and - black. no trying to figure out how slight or decisive an advantage is, there's TWO metrics. performance for life! WOOT WOOT!
here's what i'm going to brush up on after taking a break from a few days of mind numbing research and book building one move every 5 minutes. again, no GM spam here and stockfish provided the evaluations for all you GM parrots who trust that more than what happens in real life. HAHAHAHAHAHA! yes! i mock you to your face! as you haven't said anything yet here, you can't prove it was you i was talking about.
Nimzowitsch Defense Kennedy Variation
1.e4 e5 2.d4 Nc6 53:44@937k +0.8
3.d5* Nce7 Linksspringer Variation 45:52@724k +0.9
4.c4 Ng6 41:56@158k +0.7
5.Nc3 Nf6 39:57@42k +1.0
5.Nf3 Nf6 35:61@17k +0.1 transposes to 4.Nf3 Ng6 5.c4
5.Bd3 Bc5 38:58@5391 +0.3
5.g3 Bc5 41:56@2446 +0.2
5.Be3 Nf6 44:52@2259 +0.6
4.Nf3 Ng6! 40:57@106k +1.0
5.Nc3 Nf6 38:59@15k +0.9 transposes to 4.Nc3 Ng6 5.Nf3 Nf6
5.c4 Nf6 35:61@17k = SEE: 4.c4 Ng6 5.Nf3 Nf6
5.Bd3 Bc5 38:58@5.9k +0.2
5.h4 h5 6.Bg5 Nf6 7.Nc3 a6 32:66@50 +1.0
5.Bg5 Nf6 36:61@4795 =
5.Bc4 Nf6 34:63@4529 =
4.f4? Ng6 41:56@31k -0.5
5.f5? Qh4+ 28:69@12k -1.6
5.fxe5? Qh4+ 32:66@4k -2.0
5.Nf3 exf4 39:59@5371 -0.7
4.Nc3 Ng6 44:53@37k +0.6
5.Nf3 Nf6! 38:59@15k +0.9 SEE: 4.Nf3 Ng6 5.Nc3 Nf6
5.Be3 Nf6 49:48@2k +0.8
5.Bd3 a6 36:62@114 +0.8
3.Nf3* exd4 Scotch Game 52:43@6m +0.1
4.Nxd4 Qh4 Steinitz Variation 43:52@137k +0.6
5.Nc3 Bb4 44:52@58k +0.9
5.Nxc6? Qxe4+ 38:55@39k -0.8
5.Qd3 Nf6! 38:56@6291 =
5.Nb5 Bc5 44:51@741 +0.7
4.Bc4 Nf6 Scotch Gambit: Dubois Réti Defense 50:45@483k -0.1
5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 46:49@129k =
5.0-0 Nxe4 6.Re1 d5 7.Bxd5 Qxd5 8.Nc3 47:47@61k =
8…Qa5 42:51@20k =
8…Qc4!? 38:57@850 +1.6
5.Nxd4? Nxe4 40:55@25k -1.0
3.dxe5 d6 de Smet Gambit 48:48@6332 +1.1
4.exd6 Bxd6 46:50@87k +1.1
4.Nf3 Bd7 5.exd6 Bxd6 47:50@4279 +1.1
4.Bb5 Bd7! 49:47@5k +0.7
3.c3 Nf6 46:51@25k +0.5
4.d5 Ne7! 44:53@10k +0.5
4.Bg5? h6 43:52@1079 -0.1
4.dxe5 Nxe4 44:52@284 -0.1
4.Bd3? d5 36:62@505 -1.3
4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d5 Bc5 41:55@5613 =
4.Bc4? Nxe4 45:53@2231 -1.4
4.f3? d5 34:62@1178
no grandmasters were harmed in the creation of this repertoire outline.
entering everything now and already found an error and a transposition. i'll post those when i'm done.