Is the Scotch Opening a good opening?

I is back!!

This is my very first topic!! Hi everyone!!

I play the Scotch Opening frequently in 10 min games. I have good results. Especially when black takes the knight at move 4. If you enjoy open games, the Scotch is for you.

True I enjoy them! Any other suggestions?

Is scotch good? Practically, No(above 1400)! "Why?", you may ask. The answer to that question is, you cannot expect your opponent to play e5 in reply to e4. So, you have to be ready for plethora of non-e5 defenses against e4...especially sicilian. And dont forget e5 defenses like philidor and Petrov.

Below 1400, any opening with white is good enough because black players are likely to play e5 to e4. So, the job becomes much easier. White has to just learn one or two opening.

So practically above 1400, if you want to play scotch, you will have to learn the opening and learn to play the following:

1) scotch (reply to e5, Nc6)

2) philidor,

3) Petrov(or anti-petrov)

4) French

5) Sicilian (or anti-sicilian)

6) Scandinavian

7) modern defense

8) caro kann

9) Owens defense

10) Alekhine defense

One approach to simplify the task would be to play Kings indian attack against all non-e5 openings except Scandinavian. Even then, white e4 player has to learn to play the following:

1) scotch (reply to e5, Nc6)

2) philidor,

3) Petrov(or anti-petrov)

4) scandinavian

5) kings indian attack

a) Sicilian b) french c) modern defense d)caro kann e) Owens defense f) alekhine defense.

Kings indian attack is a general purpose opening and thus will not give you any advantage against those openings. And you have to still learn specific ways to counter specific openings even with kings indian attack set up.

Any e4-e5 opening is great for white if white is prepared and black is not. If both sides are prepared, then white still retains some advantage due to extra tempo. But, it is drawish in that scenario. But, you are unlikely to see a well prepared e5 black player below 1800. Because e5 player has to prepare for following openings of white:

1) scotch

2) Spanish

3) Italian

4) ponziani 

5) anti-petrov 

6) kings gambit

7) Danish or goring

8) Vienna game

In most of the above lines, white has access to many sharp Gambits. If black is not well prepared, then black will be destroyed. Black's best chance is to play philidor or Petrov if he wants to play e5. Otherwise, just play non-e5 openings against e4. So, black players above 1400 start playing non-e5 openings or philidor as a practical choice. Of course, non-e5 openings come with their own huge theory. Initially, black players don't need too much theory to win. But eventually, they have to learn a lot of theory. 

Around 2000 rating, black players become pretty well booked up on their main opening versus e4. So, white players will increasingly shift to non-e4 openings like 

1) Queens Gambit

2) trompowsky-veresov attack (anti-indian)

3) London system

4) English

5) Nimzo-larsen

6) kings indian attack

7) Bird opening

8) Stonewall structure

9) Reti (transposing to one of the above)

10) Nc3 (transposing to one of the above)

And black players can learn specific openings and variations to deal with each of the above large opening systems. But practically, black players can use following setups as a general purpose defense against these non-e4 attacks.

1) slav or caro structure

2) nimzo - Queens indian type structure

3) kings indian defense

4) hedge hog structure

5) hippo structure

6) Stonewall structure

With these general structures, black manages to get pretty equal game while avoiding excessive theory about specific openings.

Yes, that's the reason why Giuoco Pianissimo is so popular at high level nowadays.

But i guess these top level players are ignorant.

Cool!! Thx so much! If you have anymore suggestions please leave in comments below!

It's off topic but a lot of good things were created by Scottish people.  The television, the telephone, the fax machine, golf, the kaleidescope, electromagnetic theory (Maxwell) and penicillin.  There are many more things.  It's amazing how such a small land created so many things and the huge impact Scotland has had on the world.  The subject is well worth researching.

It would be hard to fault anyone for opening a good bottle of scotch. 

The Scotch is preferred over Ruy to avoid tons of study. The study material in Scotch is like 10% of Ruy. If Scotch is played by former WCC Kasparov-Karpov in WCC games, it is clearly playable.

I believe the Scotch is at least as sound from the perspective of White as the Ruy Lopez.  Maybe more even.  It was also good enough for Garry Kasparov in the WCC so it should be good for any of us.  It's my go-to weapon in 1. e4  e5 lines.

I always go for this line:

I recently lost against this becouse I played the same moves as if it was the double pawn sacrifice of the Danish gambit:

Kasparov has played literally everything against 1...e5: Ruy, Scotch, Italian, King's gambit, Evans gambit. One of his nicest wins is the following one:

Hello

Leran London opening

Not sure if anybody else looked recently at the game with Anand posted on the first page of this thread, but my take on it is that the problem is white played poorly. 5. Bb5 is not the way to go.  Instead, it should be 5. Nxc6, which takes you into the Miles variation.  It's sharper and far better for white than the line posted.

Bb5 seemed odd to me as well, so I assumed that it must be some theory.

Yeah, it seems to me that white either didn't know theory well or he wanted to try a novelty that fell apart.  Really surprising play from somebody rated that high.

No