Is the Scandinavian viable at 1000 elo? What are your thoughts?

Good day bro. E5 was my beginner move in chess too. I agree with everything you said, honestly. When you have practice and understanding with the Scandinavian, 90% of players with white at this level will falter within 15 moves, leaving you at an advantage. My winrate with the scandinavian when I have the black pieces is 60%, and I think that says something.

Yeah but it's still reasonable to ask. Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced and Master players play chess in dramatically different ways. Look at the chess opening tierlist videos by Hikaru and Levy. There's 9 of them, 3 for Beginners, 3 for Intermediates and 3 for Grandmaster. Hikaru considers it one of the best openings for beginners. Then some like Daniel Naroditsky say generally you should only consider it at 1700+ elo. I made this post to get some more opinions from others with familiarity in playing the opening and who are near my skill level, if they consider the positions they get comfortable, if they like Qd6 or Qa5, etc.

And adding 3 games where black makes idiotic moves with the queen less than 5 moves in does not help

The Scandinavian is total trash!

A player 1,000 or below shouldn’t be playing that garbage chess line.

All the Scandinavian does is reinforce bad chess habits which beginners already suffer from.

Beginners push to many pawns, don’t develop all their chess pieces, don’t Castle, and above all they move their Queen all over the bloody place.

YOU PLAN TO PLAY AN OPENING WHICH REINFORCES SUCH NONSENSE?

You might as well change your Avatar to a Tomb Stone because that will be the moment your Chess Career Dies.

People didn’t even mention the line I play to completely destroy the Scandy.

Than again the Scandinavian gets spanked by so many lines it probably take forever to list them all.

You can check out the line I play for yourself if you want instead of playing 4.d4 change the move to 4.g3

Just look at the win rate difference for White in an opening explorer.

If you care about your Chess Career/Progress at all, my recommendation is to not even bother with Scandinavian. Save yourself!

a : I think intermediate, avanced and gosu players don't play chess in dramatically different ways because we all play in relation to "a chess essential" which forms the basis to know (on the Chessmaster program we learn them through the lessons of Joshua Waitzkin and otherwise there is "The marabout guide to chess" form Van Seters Fries or simply I think in chess.com lesson) what changes between intermediate, avanced and gosu are rather the errors (tactical, strategic etc.) and the strong moves or ideas found.

b : Hikaru and Levy are Youtubers and imo they can use "troll strategies" to earn money on the number of views.

To this imo we have to add that one of the marks of success comes from the fact that they are atypical or special and therefore we have to expect there can be weird things that we should not take in the 1st degree.

1) e4 d5 2) exd5 Qxd5 imo it's rather a joke to advise this opening to a beginner because the beginner will lose tempos by playing his Queen several times, risks being captured or surrounded his Queen and by losing too much tempo this can lead to dangerous sacrifices or a killer central breakthrough.

c : imo the Scandinavian Defense can be good because it's an "opening pattern gameplay" that can be naturally difficult to beat.

From memory Vladislav Artemiev had a good tournament in rapid time (Goldmoney Asian Rapid - YouTube ) by playing "openings pattern gameplay". Imo this allows him to potentially be able to play faster and manage "easier games" against very strong Gms.

yes

I took a quick look at the Goldwater Asian Rapid. I spotted a Scandinavian he played, he used 3...Qd6 and it was a draw (I prefer 3...Qa5). He played the Tarrasch Defense as black twice, scoring 1.5 with it. The Scandi and Tarrasch Defense are what I usually play, and I was drawn to make those my repertoire because they do seem easier to recall lines (possibly because of patterns) to me.

As white he played the King's Indian Attack some, he has a tendency to play it at times anyway. I don't do all that well with the KIA, so I don't play it. He went 2-3 with the KIA (+1 -2 =2). He played a few games as white labeled the Queen's Pawn Game. I didn't look to see what those were but he has been known to play a Colle and a London at times, though very seldom. I used to play the Colle and London but eventually gave those up. He played the English a few times, another opening he tends to play some anyway. I suppose the English could fall under the category of opening patterns play but it is often a complex game nevertheless and is why I don't mess with it.

Yes, you can play the Scandinavian at 1000 elo. I am nearing 900, and I sometimes use it, though only occasionally. I suggest using the Scandinavian in the KOTH variant or in bullet chess

Imo 1) c4 is not really an opening pattern because of the transpositions which makes it discouraging to want to play it when we're not strong enough.

I would say that it is rather an opening where the players are "less familiar" then after 1) c4 e5 it is Sicilian Defense with 1 tempo +

TL;DR watch ChessCoach Andras and IM Miodrag Perunovic on YT, openings matter more than you think because there's no point in playing an opening that's "good for beginners" if you won't be a beginner anymore in less than a year and you'll just pick a better opening anyways.

Rozman, Nakamura, and Naroditsky are... not the best educational content creators. They're all firmly on the entertainment side of things, go watch Andras or Perunovic for education.

Also, yes, differently skilled players play differently, but that doesn't matter AT ALL due to the fact that skill isn't static.

If I still played my White opening (Ruy Lopez with 5. c3?? hanging e4 "so I could play Bc2 in one move") from when I was U1000 two years ago, I would still likely be floundering in the 1300 range. The same is true for if I attempted to play my Black opening against d4 (Modern with f5 Nh6 Nf7 because it "looked like better placements for my pawns and pieces). The same is true if I attempted to play my Black opening against e4 (Fried Liver because I didn't understand why it kept happening).

Obviously, none of that is the case anymore, and I'm reliably beating players in the 1800-2000 bracket in blitz and rapid, but a large part of that is that as my skill has improved, so have my openings. I couldn't get away with playing the Delayed Alapin consistently, so I had to drop it for the Open Sicilian. I had to stop playing the Alekhine's because my winrate tanked at about 1500. I had to pick up the Bogo-Indian full-time because I couldn't justify maintaining prep in the QGD, Semi-Slav, and Stonewall Dutch (by transposition against Catalan) for my anti-anti-Nimzo.

Excuse me for out of the topic about Scandinavian.
Ethan_Brollier
I come back to play 1.e4 again and hope to learn more about open games and tactics.
I have looked in some games about Open Sicilian.
And it's very impressive.
But I still don't have much time now. So I think I will choose Anti-sicilian/ Closed sicilian for a period of time.
My point is hoping to have some experience about games and tactics from sicilian not to choose Openings. ( I play white.)
What do you think about trying Alapin or Rossolimo/Moscow before go to Open Sicilian when I have more time?
Thank you.

Thank you sir. I think alot of this is stuff I wanted to hear 
a. I absolutely agree with what you said about not picking an opening that's "good for beginners" but not worth it in the long run. That's why I always tried to avoid playing the Danish or Englund openings. Honestly it's part of the reason why I made this post. I was fearful I may have to drop the Scandinavian for more principled openings later on, such as the caro or french. Time will only tell but I'm comfortable with the Scandi right now. 
b. I will definitely check Andras and Perunovic out. Levy and Hikaru in particular kinda disappoint me with their educational content or lack thereof. But I mean I had to cite them cuz I'd be lying if I told you they haven't been my main source of chess knowledge since I started (a year ago). 
c. Thanks again for this really solid response with good insights as to what picking an opening and playing chess overall will be like as I continue on the chess journey.

Looks like a King's Indian setup vs. the Scandinavian. It definitely looks strong but not immediately losing for black. Black could prepare a kingside castle and develop the bishops and knights, and the position should be close to equal