Scandinavian Defense

Hey there,

I find very annoying some King Pawn openings (Specifically the Ruy Lopez, the King Gambit and some lines of the Italian) so I would like to leave the 2...e5 defense (what have always played) and replace it with another defense more kindred to my style.

 

I've been inquiring into all possible defenses against the king's pawn, and only three passed the first tilter:

-The modern defense/Pirc Defense

-The Alekhine defense

-The Scandinavian defense

 

Then, for the complexity of ideas for both sides that have the Modern and the Alekhine defenses, I concluded that maybe they are too much for my level. So I have to choose the Scandinavian by descard.

 

The other possible defenses have a insane amount of theory, or they lead to mid games that I don't like, or have developmental problems, or, what is worse: a mixture of several of this points.

 

I like the Scandinavian for the following reasons:

1. -There's no efficient way to refuse the main line (2 exd5), so the white is oblied to enter my game.
2. -After 2...Qxd5 there is no way for white to force transpositions.
3. -The 3...Qa5, 3...Qd6 and 3...Qd8 can be played seriously and have been played at the highest level with good results. (Carlsen, Nakamura, Anand, Tiviakov and some others have played these lines.)
4. -It gives rise to very creative mid games.
5. -It's ok for me to let the white have some space advantage in the queen's side in exchange of a simple developement and a pawn structure withouth weaknesses.
6. -At more personal level, the idea of winning with a supposedly doubtful opening seems very funny to me. I love the feeling of "I'm winning you with something you did not dare to play because someone told you that it was not good, and you believed him." In fact, i play the King's gambit for the same reason and I really love it.

 

So these are my conclusions and now I would like to now your opinion:

¿Have I chose correctly? ¿I was wrong in any of my assessments?

 

Thanks from advance

I tried playing the Scandinavian 3...Qa5 a couple years ago for a lot of the same reasons. I ended up being able to play 3...Qa5 in a whopping 3 out of 11 OTB games against other U1400 players. It was annoying as heckfar. Several times the daggone opponent would sit there debating to himself whether to take on e4 on move 2 or whether to play Nc3 on move 3. I knew that — every single fudging time— when they thought about it for more than 20 seconds that they would play some dipship move that I wasn’t good enough to refute outright, because they were too scared that I would crush them with a spectacular miniature using my stupid dope book moves. The games were interesting in retrospect, I guess. Sorry for the gratuitous language. That is not who I am nor who I aspire to be.

 

Nf3 is easily refuted by playing Bg4 right away, pinning the knight to the queen. Of course there's theory involved there like everywhere else. I'm an avid Scandi player and have yet to meet a stronger 3rd move than Nc3, to which I prefer the Qd8 line. Still it holds true that every opening is refuted by default if you play it badly enough

 

Morphys-Revenge, with that handle choice I would expect 2...Nf6 to be your best Scandinavian.