What to do against the Nimzowitsch defense...

The Title says it all.

Yes, I would play Nc3.

would go with 2 nf3. bonus to ensnare someone with 2..d6 3 d4 bg4 4 d5!? ne5 5 nxe5 bxd1 6 bb5+ with a better position for white, and also more fun for white. however if you play the vienna then 2 nc3 is the way to go.

2.Nc3 does not do anything.  2...d6 or 2...Nf6 are just as much possible as 2...e5.

Stronger are 2.Nf3 and 2.d4, the former being the latest fashion due to some dangerous lines in White's favor if Black doesn't transpose to Double King-pawn openings.

As a nimzo player, I can tell you most of us will avoid going into king's pawn games as much as possible. They will prob play a dark knight pirc or trade queens after d6 e5.

The wheeler gambit is quite strong. It allows you to get extra tempo, an open b-file, and c3 played at the cost of a pawn.

Wesley recommendation against nimzowitsch in his e4 course

its a nimzowitsch defense trade secret that we much rather see 2.d4 than 2.nf3.

(actually 2.nc3 may be even more annoying contra thriller's comment, the problem is, the nimzo-pirc approach is inferior vs 2.nc3 because white can get a favorable formation with d4 and f4 where black doesnt have the c5 manuever like in the austrian variation of the pirc and the threat of always watching your back for the e5 pawn thrust is very annoying. black can play 2.e5 but this is a stylistic concession  ).

after  2.nf3 black has a bunch of replies that range from best, good, dubious and thrash. objectively best is 2.e5 transposing to king pawn territory but  since this is almost certainly fine for white as he played 1.e4 anyways (unless you were hoping exclusively for vienna/bishop's opening/king's gambit but this is rare), and doesnt fit  the nimzowitsch style, yoou may not see it too often . After that, they are lines with 2.d6 that are objectively decent, usually played like a pirc defense. 2.e6 is somewhat ok if black knows what he is doing, the rest of the replies are dubious or worse and you should study their refutations.

#13
Carlsen regularly plays it
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1997152 

I only encountered this opening once and in that game after I played Nf3, d5 came and the game went into a NC6 scandinavian.

Haha u a funny man

”path to grandmastery “

”e4 Nc6 g4”

”doesn’t deserve a rematch”

It is a defense I haven't studied but somehow seems to keep popping up against me. I soon learned that it never worked to try to crush it quickly. If I am cautious I play Nf3 [e.g. 1. e4 Nc6 2. Nf3].   .... If I'm bored& want a different sort of game I play d4 and often get this 1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. c3 e6 5. Bd3 Bxd3  and then I just play slowly to take advantage of more space. Specifics depend on where the black king goes. Again, never studied the lines so maybe this second line is really bad but so far not trying to refute it but just claim more space and keep the position under control has been OK.

i probably prefer this because this disables the knight on c6 and if black does a6 then Bxc6 bxc6 d4 and white has control over the center

lemfnk

E4 NC6