Good answer to 1 e4 c5 for Scotch fan ?

I love to play Scotch opening and I can transpose to it form a bunch of others. 

Still it's difficult for me to play against Sicillian. I am looking for something more interesting then 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4.

The best I found so far was Grand Prix attack 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 ... 3. f4. But I am not sure that's it.

So what will you advise to chose against Sicillian for someone who usually plays Scotch?

Morra Gambit

Uhm, nothing is more "interesting" than 2.Nf3 and 3.d4.

The Morra is unsound, and if Black wants, he can also force you into an Alapin (a.k.a. c3-Sicilian).

Comparing various lines of the Sicilian to the Scotch is like comparing various forms of chemotheropy to an enema.  They are nothing alike.  The Sicilian rarely leads to a wide open game.

Thanks, Foenixx, Morra looks really intresting. It leads to open game which I really like, and some possible attacking lines remind me of Morphy Gambit which I just recently started to use against Philidor. 

Now all I need is something better then Monte Carlo variation in French which I currently use (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4) and I will be absolutely satisfied with my openings.

ThrillerFan, Morra may be unsound but it's hard to prove on that level I am playing at (1500). And line with 2.Nf3 and 3.d4 has been statistically bad for me lately. Maybe I don't know and/or understand it good enough...

As for the French, being a former French player myself (1996 to 2007), I can tell you with over 350 tournaments games with the French (about 300 of them as Black) that there are two good lines against the French, and two that give white aboslutely nothing if Black plays it right.  Keep in mind, it doesn't matter that you are facing 1500 now.  If you get better, and are playing a line that will never work against better players, you have to start all over again at square 1 when you reach say, 1900.

That said, the Exchange gets white zip!  With or without c4!  Nothing!  Nada!  Zilch!

The other variation that gets White nothing is the Tarrasch.  Many Black players will play 3...Nf6 because the ideas are simpler than that of IQP positions, but the reality is, White gets absolutely nothing if Black plays the following:

First off, 3...c5!  Now if 4.Ngf3, only then 4...Nf6 5.e5 Nfd7 6.c3 Nc6 7.Bd3, leading to the Korchnoi Gambit, and after 7...Qb6 8.O-O cxd4 9.cxd4 f6 (instead of accepting with 9...Nxd4) scores White a mere 50%

So that leaves 4.exd5.  After 4...exd5, if White plays 5.Bb5+, answer with the pawn sacrifice, 5...Bd7 6.Qe2+ Be7! and even in Newinchess.com's online database, White scores a mere 38.5% across 92 games (12 wins, 33 losses, 47 draws)

Therefore, that leaves 5.Ngf3, and instead of the "old" 5...Nc6, that leads to a heavy number of draws, and most of those not drawn are wins for White, the more modern 5...Nf6! has been scoring really well for Black in the last 10 years.

So all of that said, that leaves two possibilites for White, both of which have been leading to problems for Black.

For players that prefer static positions with locked pawns, play the Advance Variation, specifically the lines with 6.a3.  The gambit lines with 6.Bd3 are busted, and 6.Be2 is no better than the Tarrasch Variation.  After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 (or 5...Bd7), 6.a3 has been giving Black fits for the last 7 or so years due to many new ideas found for White in the mid-2000s.

If you prefer a more wild and dynamic game, play 3.Nc3!, which is supposed to be a tad stronger than 3.e5.  The lines with 7.Qg4 against the Winawer along with the Steinitz (3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5) have been giving Black problems as of late.  This requires more studying and more work, and you may start off with a bunch of losses, but in the long run, you'll get a lot further with these lines than you will 3.exd5 or 3.Nd2.

I don't like what you say (because it means that I'll have to choose openings which are more difficult to play and learn. Looks like I'll have to abandon my Scotch for something like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 in near future), but I must agree because know that you are right. 

Still I enjoy playing open positions much-much more then closed ones, and what I am trying to do right now is to find better lines which lead to open game then those I use currently. 

Also, thank you very much for your great reply about French, I will now spend a lot of time to study about all the stuff you mentioned here. Great stuff, thanks one more time.

Actually, The Scotch is better than 3.Bc4.  At a higher level, if you want to win with any level of regularity against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6, the Scotch and Ruy Lopez are about your only legitimate options.  Others might work as a one-off surprise weapon, but they can't be depended upon with regularity.

If you prefer an open game, 3.Nc3 is better than 3.e5 against the French.  It won't be "open" like the Scotch, and a blocked center with White pawns on d4 and e5 is still very common, but it does tend to eventually open up faster than the Advance does, ESPECIALLY if they play the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Winawer.

When I say about preparing secondary lines, I wasn't referring to the Scotch.  I was more referring to the Grand Prix Attack and Exchange French.

If you want a line which gives you great attacking oportunities, I suggest you to play 2.Nf3, and if you are terified about black's counterplay in most of the lines with black castling kngside and white queenside, I recommend oyu to play for the following setup, from which you can start attacking with g4, h4, after placing your rook(s) and your queen on the g and h file. 

I've tried it in some games against the sicilian and helped me a lot, because my king wasn't in the queensid, so there was no danger for me. Also, the c4 pawn prevents black from playin b5 and creates a counterplay in the queenside !

I hope I helped you!

probably not the greatest line but e4 c5 what if 2e5 granted the pawn is weak but it can slow black down for a bit esp on k side and who knows adequate support from f2 f4 or d2 d4 aint so hard to do but its probably not what you want and i personally wouldnt want to play it as white

Another opening that gave me fits playing the Sicilian was the Vienna, it can be a powerful weapon. Not many people play it either. Its got gambit lines etc. I am not the  one to tell you how to play it though.

I just know a friend of mine (he was higher rated than me), he was rated about 1750+, used to beat me  alot playing it. It also plays 2.Nc3.

Another one which interests me, because I had never heard of it until recently is the Dunst opening, I don't know how solid it is, but it also starts with  2.Nc3. It also has lots of traps in it. I am not sure how well either of these openings fare in OTB tournaments. Perhaps you may want to check them out. Good luck.

No, they aren't.

Do your homework, and then come back.

I've already done my homework, fool!

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3?? cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4 10.Nc3 a6! (Even 10...Qxe5 is ok, but 10...a6 is stronger) 11.Qe2 Ne7 (11...h5 White-Clark Uxbridge 2010 is also very strong) 12.Kh1 Nc6 and White's last gasp is 13.Be3 (13.f4 is also busted: 13...Nb4 14.Rd1 Bc5 15.Bxa6 Qf2 16.Qxf2 Bxf2 -+, White-Tozer Uxbridge 2010) Qxe5 14.f4 Qd6 with SLIGHT chances for White.  If this is survivable for White, Black can shift to 11...h5 which is a very strong move for Black.

I've done my homework.  I busted this line for over 11 years as Black before shifting to the Caro-Kann and 1...e5, which are what I play today.

Your comment makes no sense.  The Vienna can't give the Sicilian fits.  They aren't even the same thing.  The Vienna is 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3.  The Closed Sicilian is 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 (or 2...e6) 3.g3.  The Grand Prix Attack is 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4.  The Dunst is 1.Nc3, NOT 2.Nc3, and I can say the following, having played all of these back when I played 1.e4 and 1.Nc3 back in the mid-2000s:

Vienna - It's ok, not great, but every time I ever tried to play it as White, I lost, and usually would win with Black.  It always just feels like White falls behind in development.  Not saying it's unsound like the Milner-Barry Gambit in the French, but I personally could never make it work.

Closed Sicilian - If I ever go back to 1.e4, this is what I would play.  Spassky and Suttles were both monsters with this system against the Sicilian, and I had excellent results with it, and in my humble opinion, it's the only line other than the open Sicilian worth playing for White.  The Sicilian is NOT the reason I quit playing 1.e4.  It's mainly 1...e5 and the Caro-Kann.  Hmmm....no wonder I play those two as Black!!

Grand Prix Attack - This line is utter crap.  Yes it can be tricky.  It's full of traps.  But if Black knows what he's doing, this should never work, and pretty much never has against me except one time when I was in severe time trouble, but that wasn't the opening that got me, it was late game blunders.

Dunst - A good trick line, great surprise weapon, but wouldn't recommend it as your main solution for White.  I tried to play it for over 2 years, and had some great results, even in weird lines, like the Tubingen Gambit (1.Nc3 Nf6 2.g4), but in the long-run, it wasn't improving my chess at all, and to go along with those brillant wins against 2100 players, I'd at the same time play like a patzer against an 1800.  Use this against someone you've played against many times, like at a local club that plays rated games, and keep it at that.

Well, your analysis, as expected, doesn't hold much water.

It's also almost irrelevant, since 9.Nbd2! is much better than 9.Nxd4, when Black must play with great precision to equalize.

If you insist doing such lazy homework, I'm afraid I will have to contact your parents.

TF, thanks for your response, and apologies,  I did play the Sicilian, and yes my friend did play the Vienna, and it did give me fits. Granted this was in the early 90's and my opening knowledge along with my memory it seems as well, isn't that great.

These were friendly games, and not OTB. Although he did have good OTB success as well. An expert had taught it to him, his college roommate.

 4 years of practicing it. He would play e4, I would play c5, he would play Nc3, maybe its my ignorance though that it wasn't the Vienna he was playing. I also did sometimes play e5.

Apologies about, the Dunst I thought Nc3 was the second move. I have only just found out about it recently, and I was interested in it because it reminded me of the Vienna opening I had played against over 20 years ago.

I thought there might be some transpositions into either line. I was also interested and curious about it because it was an IM's life long work.

I wasn't directing my original post at you, but to the OP, Since he didn't like the Scotch against the Sicilian. e4 c5, I was just trying to help based on my own experiences, which granted aren't as valid as yours.

Anyway thanks for your response, and apologies if I am incorrect, no disrespect was intended. Good luck.

Morra is scary to face esp unprepared 

Well, I'm certainly not a great player, but here's what I say. I used to play the Scotch and when I did, I often studied the games of the world's leading expert on the Scotch, GM Sergei Rublevsky. And Rublevsky is also one of the biggest proponents of the Bb5 Sicilians. What I would do if I were you, and what I did at the time, at least on the white side of the board, was adopt his repertoire as my own so I could play the things he played and look at the middlegame positions that resulted. Just my $.02

This is actually really great idea, thank you. I'll use Morra for Sicillian but for other stuff this could be a good place to start. Especially for my openings as Black (which are really bad).

Look now you little twit that don't know sh*t, it's not like I can write an entire GDMF'ing novel on a thread, but now that you clarified specifically which line you think is so great for White, 9.Nbd2 also holds little to no value for White:

Basically any move other than 9...Nc6 scores Black 50% or better, but the best line is 9...Ne7 after which 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.Nf3 Qa4! 12.b3 Qa5 13.Bd2 Qd8 14.Re1 and now, instead of the most common move here, 14...h6?!, Black should play 14...Nc6!, preventing the immediate 15.b4, and forcing White to play 15.a3 first to prepare b4, giving Black an extra move, and White's Queenside play is way too slow, and his compensation is non-existent.  A great example of this is Pirrot - Drozdovsky, Dresden 2007.

And just in case you are trying to stir up more trouble...other moves for White are even worse:

13.b4 Qd8 14.Bg5 h6 15.Be3 can be answered by 15...Nc6 16.b5 Na5 17.Qe2 Ba3 with advantage for Black, Solovjov - Vysochin, St Petersburg 2009

14.b4 Ng6 15.g3 Be7 16.h4 f6 17.Re1 O-O 18.Qb1 and while Pap - Arsovic, Serbia 2009 finished in a draw, the burden of proof is still on White as Black was never in trouble and retained his extra pawn the entire game.

Umm... whatever you say.

There is no point arguing with you, your doctor will protest.

For the record, the only equalizing line for Black is 9...Bc5!, but I have no intention teaching illiterates- especially since all that are well documented in the Antic/Maksimovic repertoire book on the French. No need to repeat their fine analysis for people who don't understand shit.