Why so many forums about van geet?

I might prefer the Veresov over the Jobava against your g6 setup now that I'm looking into the line deeper. The Jobava Barry attack and Tarzan attack tends to fizzle out. But the Veresov can lead to some complexity...

Since we played our knight move early... Black can play 4... Ne4 here to diverge from a typical veresov, but after h4 things get interesting. He can't take the bishop or white has a significant advantage. He can't play h6 or white is doing well... he should ignore the bishop for a while. But things gradually get complicated and the engine eval equalizes.... and that's where whites prep may start to pay off...

I play the rare line!

Sometimes, people call it Sniper line.

Pterodactyl is the name of it.

The best engine defensive moves require some crazy Queen moves from White.

Do you know how many players find those Queen moves? 0

This is why it can be dangerous playing Nc3 against Modern Defense!

Most people chicken out and play Nf3 going for Open Sicilian.

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Nc3 is more common vs. the Pirc though.

You are correct about that one!

@Post #69

If your going to play Veresov, you might be better off avoiding the Knight f3 move.

You are taking away some of the lines trappy power!

If you play normal Veresov move order, you can get an advantage against inexperienced players or unprepared players who play play 3…g6.

Black is supposed to play 3…Nbd7 to make sure if White capture Knight on f6. Black can recapture with their Knight on d7 instead of the E pawn.

If Black wants to play g6, they have to do it like above.

The other line is extremely dreadful for Black.

‘I have had it happen to me before so that is how I know about it.

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If you include Nf3, Your sort of letting Black off hook because they can’t screw up as easy.

The extra move by white gives Black enough time to play Bishop to g7 so that sort of removes some of the trap element of the line.

I think you can collect a good amount of wins by letting Black have chance of falling into that bad structure line.

I am just mentioning it because it might be worth thinking about.

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After the above moves, I think I would play 2…Nf6.

I’m not huge fan of pushing pawns.

I try to maintain the position.

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To me, if your going to play 2.Nf3, you have to do something unorthodox!

You can’t try to go back into Versesov or Jobava which has been played by every 1.d4 player imaginable.

You have to do something completely outside of the box which is fairly unique to the knight moves and is completely surprising.

Is their a line white can play similar to a Budapest?

The above line would be only thing I would wonder about.

The line would be more unique to the 1. Nc3 line because it is helping enable e4 pawn push.

I am just wondering if this position would be like reverse Budapest.

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Another line I am wondering about involves d3.

Maybe, you can do Bishop g5 move or something.

I am thinking of like a Reverse Nimzo or something.

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1. Nc3 is a weird opening move.

Your not playing any weird lines!

All the lines your talking about is same lines people can see against 1.e4 or 1.d4 players.

You need to mix some weird stuff in your 1. Nc3 line.

Otherwise, what is the point?

What unsound opening do you have in your 1. Nc3 preparation?

What about b4?

If they play d4, your going to play Na4 and plant your knight on c5 which is out post square because of the b4 pawn. Something weird and wild needs to be played.

Something which might not be totally sound, but is interesting and unique to 1.Nc3.

You are missing a lot of lines.

Your missing to many lines to mention.

The above line has several different lines Black can play which we talked about on this thread.

If you was to play the 1.Nc3, you wouldn’t try to learn all the White positions.

‘You would pick a few because it would be to theory heavy.

For Example:

After the first moves, White has several different 2nd responses.

You wouldn’t want to play and learn them all because it would be to much theory to study.

You would most likely only pick 1 or 2 continuations.

You often want to narrow your lines as much as possible so your not overwhelmed.

For Example:

The above position is Jobava London and their are books written about just that 1 line.

The Book goes over all different moves Black can play.

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A better way to write your repertoire would be the following:

1. Nc3 d5

Move 2 Branch - White has to decide what path to take 2.d4, 2.e4, 2.Nf3, or something else

I think Ibrust is trying to run the 2.Nf3 line so he would go.

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 d4

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 c6

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 (Other moves to be announced)

The above 3 lines are top 3 most popular responses for Black so player playing white would need to know what to do against all 3 responses. The other moves would be learned later as you begin seeing them played by your opponents.

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6

Move 3 Branch for 2…Nf6 - Ibrust picked d4 I believe.

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 Bf5

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 g6

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 c5

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 (Other moves to be announced)

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 d4

Move 3 Branch for 2…d4 - Ibrust didn’t say

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 c6

Move 3 Branch for 2…c6 - Ibrust didn’t say

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 (Other moves to be announced)

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The Repertoire Spider Web would just keep getting bigger and bigger.

The above one is sort of easy because Black side players don’t play many moves.

I showed a 3 most popular move spider web.

The Sicilian and Ruy Lopez can a minimum of 10 popular moves.

The knight only doesn't have an interesting purpose against g6. Against all the other moves it turns out fine. g6 is played in 10% of games... the engine does recommend playing it slow via Nf3 against g6, I don't enjoy that but it's not objectively bad.

However, this dilemma we have with 3... g6 here is not nearly as unpleasant as the ones you run into against 3... Nbd7 when you play the mainline veresov, or against c6 for that matter. Here I can avoid both. Infact, against Nbd7 at high level f3 is practically refuted, usually you go ahead and play Nf3 the two knights - two knights has a much better winrate than f3, but still not great... black can still followup with g6 here, btw, transposing to one of our positions. But often your c3 knight is locked in place and you can't push e4 for quite a long time. And the variation also explodes in size... so this is a super-deep line you have to memorize to even reach a viable position. Not pleasant. Against 3... g6 in our line, if I wanted, I could at least just play the Amazon attack where I manage to push e4 early and trade the c3 knight off, then push c3 and blunt that bishop - it's a drawish game but much preferred to the Veresrov two knights situation or 3... c6 situation. And f3 also isn't especially good against 3... c6 in the veresov either. The move f3 in the Veresov is good against Bf5 and g6, it's not always good. Against Bf5 here we have the immediate Ne5 and we're fine. It's really just g6 that's giving us problems.

So no, I don't think it's a problem worth trading for bigger problems... in 90% of games either the knight jumps in very early or we get a french defense usually ... it's not really a problem.

In truth the Veresov has always been a bit dubious and I think you need another layer of misdirection to make it really viable.

The real viable alternative would be the mainline Jobava probably, but my problem with that is... people have now prepared defenses against the Jobava, specifically the e6 variation seems to be doing well against the Jobava, when they pin the knight on c3 and start harassing the queen when you try to defend it, backing you up. It's actually less pleasant than our 3... g3 problems here. Our 3... g3 problems are really just that it's slow and we lack a plan. Unless we want to go caveman with h4, or we want to trade pieces early with the Amazon attack and have little tension / an equal game. But if this is the worst we have to deal with.... it's not the end of the world, and g6 is alot more rare and people aren't going to have the lines prepared.

Furthermore, there's the whole transpositional value leading up to reaching the position, which often lands the opponent in a version of the Jobava or Veresov they don't typically play, and that has significant value.

And I do actually like this h4 move against g6, even though it's not ideal by the engine I don't think black will play it as sharp as he needs to. If I did care about the engine I could always go with the super-boring engine line.

Not sure yet about your budapest ideas, it's an interesting suggestion I can look at later.

But as far as playing the Jobava / Veresov I think the 3 knights chigorin setup, while not without its drawbacks, I think it is on the whole preferrable to the alternatives.

As far as the other lines -

Against 1... Nf6 I'm just playing a falkbeer vienna. This is a personal preference but a) falkbeer gambit with 3. f4 is very compact and I already know the line, b) the statistical reality is 22% of 2200+ players play 1... Nf6 but only about 9% of players are e4/e5 falkbeer vienna players. In practice this line does mess up alot of people, despite what our NM friend claims, it's just statistical fact really, c) if you try the mexican defense here - 1. Nc3 Nf6 2. Nf3 - you actually do run into complications against the pirc / modern, you're forced to play the classical pirc. It's a fine line but I already play either the byrne or some iteration of the austrian attack, I don't want to relearn the pirc / modern.

Another option would just be the typical chigorin against 1... Nf6 - you avoid the pirc problems this way, there are a few sidelines but I suppose I actually just enjoy the falkbeer vienna.

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 c6 3. d4 - the two knights caro-kann is an option, but since I'm already playing the Jobava against 3... c6 I just transpose to that line here as well. And it'll be less common to face for the kann player than the two knights, which is pretty well known. There's one niche sideline you have to think about here -

3... Nf6 - that's the jobava transposition

3... Bf5 - this is an unusual alburt defense, I prefer this response -

The Jobava generally does well against 3... c6, and Nf3 is one of the main moves there, you can play Ne5 very early on, no issues really.

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1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 - 3. e4 is another option but I'm playing this as a veresov transposition since this is already part of my repertoire. There are some other sidelines here -

3... Nf6 - the veresov transposition

3... c5 - respond with 4. e4 and it transposes w/ one of the better lines in the two knights sicilian. This line is actually extremely good line for white, sharp and very favored by the engine -

3... Bb4 - it'll usually transpose with the Bb4 pin variation in the veresov, probably its most unpleasant line but I prefer how the Veresov handles it over the Jobava, the f6 knight is pinned it can't jump in and harass.

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1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 c5 - this is just a direct transposition with the two knights sicilian main line

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 d4 - just the mexican defense

1. Nc3 d5 2. Nf3 d4 3. Nf6 - chigorin three knights we've been discussing already

I actually do think I'd prefer this mexican defense approach over the mainline Jobava or Veresov, for the reasons given... It's a distortion to say the mexican defense is a well-trodden approach, even when it's transposing. I do think the closed scandinavian is a fine alternative. Part of why I chose this chigorin system over the closed scandi is the chigorin contributes to how I handle the kann / french as well. Otherwise I'm playing a typical Paulsen french, which is fine just very mainline and typical for the french player, not really challenging him much. Anyway, in time I probably will play both and see which one performs better. And then if someone pins my closed scandi defense I can mix it up with this chigorin system, and also use this system against the french / kann.

But the value proposition of the Van Geet is in the entire repertoire - there's nothing else like 1... d5, it's all a breeze really - two knights sicilian, napoleon attack, falkbeer vienna, it shreds the dutch, the way it handles french and kann transpositions... it's all excellent really.

if your opponent knows you play 1.nc3 and especially if they know you dont play the independent lines, you are easy to prepare agaisnt.

any master level player who plays unorthodox openings mixes up their repertoire to become very difficult to prepare agaisnt it. Jobava himself who was one of the top mavericks not long ago said it best, you either have a deep narrow repertoire or a wider more spread out one. the former means you can never be surprised in your element, the latter means your opponent will never know what you throw at them.

1.nc3 purely as a transpositional weapon just gives black a very easy time to prepare agaisnt you since they will know you dont play the rare non-transposing lines which may require preparation. you are better off playing 1.e4 and d4 and keep em guessing if you aiming for 2.nc3 or not.

you cant even force a vienna half the time after 1.nc3 nf6 e5 as you will encounter d5! as often as if not more than e5

lets put an end to this nonsense

1.nc3 d5 2.nf3 nf6 3.e4? dxe4 4.ng5 bg4! 5. be2 bf5 and here

if 6. 0-0, h6 7.nh3 bxh3

if 6.d3 exd3 and white has zero compensation for the pawn and d isolani.

best try is 6.bc4 e6 7.qe2 qd4!, if 8.nb4 qd7 9.nc3 nc6, best is 8.f3 exf3 9.nxf3 qb6 and once again we a pawn for nothing.

none of these lines are particularly difficult to find by a 2000+ fide player in otb time controls.

Big strawman here again since no one anywhere has ever suggested the ideal approach to playing the Van Geet is to use it as a purely transpositional tool. What has been said, though, is that there are significant advantages for a Vienna player in reaching the Vienna from the Van Geet, and there are, that is a logically separate claim and has already been elaborated on in detail at the top of this page if you want to actually go use your brain a little bit. But overall your whole post here has been addressed repeatedly.

Again, you will not encounter 1... Nf6 2... d5 in the Van Geet as often as you will encounter 1... Nf6 2... e5. The stats you're going by are mostly taken from alekhines defense players who reach the position from 1. e4 and are deliberately looking to avoid e4 theory - in our case, people playing 1... Nf6 against the Van Geet are trying to do the opposite, they're specifically trying to reach e4 theory. Or they just don't know what they're doing. In neither case are they often going to play 2... d5. In practice people just have not been doing that in my games, and it is no mystery as to why... We are not facing tons of Alekhines defense players after 1. Nc3 Nf6. Already been explained but apparently it needs reexplaining.

And you don't keep anyone guessing by playing 1. e4, it is the most common move in the game, it's not surprising anyone. Sorry no, it just isn't. The opponent already is prepared for this - not against you, against everyone. Half of everyone else in whatever tournament you're in will already be playing this move, and this will pretty much always be the case. 

If your opponent knows you play any specific lines you're going to be easy to prepare against, but Jobava was talking about your actual repertoire, not some theoretical potential repertoire you could possibly play - your opponent is not going to prepare against something you never play just because it could theoretically be reached from your move order. If I play 1. d4 > 2. Nc3 the black player is not going to have a d4/c4 prep against me, I don't know what twlight zone you're living in where you believe the opponent thinks this way. For one, you're just debating a 1st vs 2nd move difference, and you could play 1. b3 for all your opponent knows. Again this has been pointed out 3-4 times but with you it just goes right over your head, it's obvious but apparently not to you.

can u read my forum - https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/membership-giveaway-gold-platinum-or-diamond#last_comment

me entire point has been that there is no advantage to 1.nc3 as MERELY a transpositional tool, if you missed that, then idk what you been reading in my replies.

in my praxis, when i play 1.nc3 nf6, i encounter d5 far more than i encounter e5, im not gonna extrapolate entirely just on that but i see zero advantage in reaching the vienna game this way. 
you are not getting my point at all. no one is getting surprised by 1.e4 but when my opponent plays 1.e4 and my opponent replies with e5 he must be prepared to meet at least half a dozen responses , he must know theory on the ruy, the italian, the vienna , the scotch, the bishops opening and the center game and the king's gambit, and most of these are sufficiently rich openings that knowing sub-variations is a must. its not about suprise value in the vacuum, its that your opponent cant know you play 1.e4 alone and know what you will throw agaisnst him if your repertoire is rich enough. whereas after 1.nc3 nf6 only 3 openings are relevant, vienna, jobava, and Veserov and they diverge by move 2 and 3.

in other words, if your intention is playing vienna, you are better off playing 1.e4, esp since 1.nc3 allows virtually any secondary opening of choice anyways, but with narrower options.

its clear you dont play chess at a high level because opponents havent thoroughly prepared agaisnt you in open tournaments. knowing how to play lots of sub-variations (or alternatively lots of openings in general) is virtually essential in master praxis. This is ESPECIALLY essential when you play offbeat openings where the path to remain in playable territory or not just be worse with black requires one to play in narrow corridors.

lets do this thought experiment, who you think its easier to prepare agaisnt? someone who can play any of the 6 or 7 king pawn game openings with white, or someone who plays 1.nc3 who may or not play 2.e4 vs nf6? the former player may prepare some line vs the vienna but has to distribute his efforts in the other half dozen opening lines to not get caught off guard, whereas agaisnt the latter, he knows, if 2.e4 prepare entirely agaisnt vienna lines, and if 2.d4 have one line for a jobava and one line for the Veserov. THATS IT.

people, look his rating look at mine, im tired of arguing with this patzer.

Dude I just looked at your games and I can see the actual stats. In the position 1. Nc3 Nf6 2. e4 you have faced 2... e5 46 times and you've faced 2... d5 13 times. Which roughly matches with my own experience. You are not facing Alekhines defense players in the 22% of games when you transpose into this from the Van Geet, this is nonsense and I can literally see this in your games. You are facing players trying to reach an e4/e5 position, assuming they know what they're doing. The move 2... d5 is an attempt to avoid e4/e5 theory, that is an Alekhines defense players move, it is not a generally good move, it is a crap move actually and its only purpose is to avoid e4/e5 theory which is the exact opposite intention of an e4/e5 player responding to the Van Geet.

Yeah you better go make your appeal to authority because again your argument is falling apart upon basic analysis.

Once again, the only way you're going to force an opponent to prepare all of those lines for you is if you actually play all of those lines.

And again, if you were to this point where you're playing 7 different openings just within e4/e5 - then you're well past the point where you can play multiple systems, and the Van Geet transposes into common openings in e4, d4, and reti systems. You can play different first moves and use large chunks of your Van Geet repertoire, infact it's actually beneficial for this purpose, not detrimental - I have already explained this multiple times. For example, let's compare a 1. Nc3 > 2. d4 player vs. a 1. d4 > 2. Nc3 player. Let's say they want to pick up d4/c4 and mix it up. The only additional openings the Van Geet player must learn, which he wouldn't have needed to learn if he had played 1. d4 > 2. Nc3 instead, are the Englund and the Benoni. The amount of theory you're suggesting a player ought to know just within e4/e5 - the Ruy Lopez, the Italian, the Scotch, the Vienna, whatever else - and the amount of theory a player will need to know to exhaust the Van Geet of its options - so far exceeds the theory needed to respond to the Englund or Benoni that your point is completely mute and irrelevant. And if you do not know all the theory, and play the lines... you're not going to intimidate anyone into preparing against it for you. But they will already prepare against it anyway, because every other random person in the tournament will already be playing 1. e4. So no... no, you have no point.

Furthermore, as a Van Geet player who's exhausted his options within the Van Geet, if you wanted to mix it up and play 1. e4 for the Ruy Lopez or Italian - the only variation you need to learn, which you don't already play, is literally the Ruy Lopez or Italian. You already play lines in everything else within 1. e4. You already play the CaroKann, french, scandinavian, pirc, modern, closed sicilian, vienna game, alekhines, even the nimzowitsch defense... there is nothing in 1. e4 you do not play already, because you have exhausted all options within the Van Geet already. So go ahead and play 1. e4 to your hearts content since there is absolutely no learning barrier to you doing this at all. 

I am playing the mexican defense and the two knights sicilian. If I wanted to play the reti... then I already have moves prepared against the 5 of the most common responses from black in the Reti - Nf6, d5, c5, e6, and c6. And infact, if I were to evolve my Van Geet repertoire more in this direction, and pick up the classical pirc... I would have viable lines against almost every one of blacks responses in the Reti. Then I could just focus on learning the KIA, or maybe the open sicilian, or whatever specific Reti line I wanted... or just the Torre, or catalan, or whatever. That's how that would work.

This is the "high level thinking" of an NM, folks.

do you purposely misread what i say? . "You already play the CaroKann, french, scandinavian, pirc, modern, closed sicilian, vienna game..." you are forced to play into one narrow corridor of all these lines so i have no idea why you bring them up.

"Once again, the only way you're going to force an opponent to prepare all of those lines for you is if you actually play all of those lines." if all someone knows you play is 1.e4 the have to be prepared for all those lines ,to have a passable repertoire. im obviously comparing 1.e4 vs 1.nc3 for a specific purpose which is opening prep one must be prepared for, IF you actually could play chess to save your life you would know this.

i have no idea what your point is on the englund or benoni. The point of preparing a thorough repertoire is to increase your opponents difficulties not to minimize your opening commitments, sure some lower level players will trim lines to not do the hard work to mantain a competitive repertoire, but thats irrelevant, i dont need to know every sideline of 1.d4 or 1.e4 to keep my opponents guessing.
take someone that as white regularly uses the big 4 (1.e4 1.d4 1.nf3, 1.c4) a very common occurrence in master level, in tournament play, you may know they use most of the main openings and you may even get an inkling of which formations they prefer agaisnt the main lines but unless someone thoroughly researches you, they wont know how many ways you play 1.e4 e5 for example , and since there is only roughly a certain percentage of games they will open with 1.e4 you only gonna spend so much time studying 1.e4 sidelines anyways. 

the nc3 nf6 2.e4 e5 or d5 im talking from my own games both on lichess and here, i played a lot more on lichess before coming to this site and there i encountered d5 more often. but even if you were right on this small point, so what? the major point remains the same, you cannot force a vienna even from 1.nc3 nf6 2.e4 since moves like 2.d5 and 2.d6 are viable, your whole argument rests on this idea that i can lure my opponents with a vienna more this way when the cost is that my opponent can play like 6+ systems on narrower corridors than 1.e4.

yes, its high level thinking, because my entire freaking point has been that, if used solely as a transpositional tool you are better off playing 1.e4 or 1.d4 effectively. Hell ,you know, WHY the better way to reach the vienna is via 1.nf6 and not the natural 1.e5 ? because those in the know, realize that most 1.nc3 players go for 2.nf3 vs e5 not merely transpose to the vienna. they assume you are not merely playing for transposition because thats kind of dumb. 

you wanna know moves like 1.g3 and 1.nc3 are VASTLY more popular than 1.e3, 1.d3 and 1.c3 ? because the former has independent opening value even if highly transpositional and are played for that reason, whereas there is virtually no independent significance to the latter except to play as black by forfeiting a tempo

The level of duncery is reaching a volcanic level here...

I bring them up because you can just go ahead and play 1. e4 with no barrier whatsoever, picking and choosing whatever "additional options" you'd like to play - such as the Ruy Lopez - that is the entire point you dunce. You know, because unless you actually play the line no one is going to prepare against it for you, merely playing 1. e4 in your games is not going to force a person to prepare 7 different lines against you if you just follow it up with the Italian every game. But if you actually want to play the Italian, as a Van Geet player who's exhausted his options, go ahead and play the Italian there is absolutely nothing you need to learn other than the Italian. But if you want to learn other things - if you want to have an extended 1. e4 repertoire to compliment your Van Geet repertoire - you know, because you claim you're going to be playing 7 different lines after e4/e5 apparently - you can do that too.

FFS the level of duncery is going through the roof here

In what twilight zone has your mind escaped to, where your entire argument hinges on tricking some hypothetical opponent who only knows you play 1. e4 and has no ability to see what variation within 1. e4, and so this Van Geet move is unplayable and now you must choose 1. e4 just to prepare for this stupid scenario? Btw - what if you happen to play both 1. Nc3 and 1. e4, you know since the Van Geet is flexible across systems. Well now you've really thrown this imaginary cartoon character for a loop! This cartoon character who could only figure out your first move - maybe because he heard some whisper somewhere before the game someone say "mphhh... he plays 1. e4 ...blaaghghg...". FFS you are a dunce. How are you NM? Honestly. Did your parents sit you in front of a chess board since you were 7 years old and so you just couldn't avoid becoming NM despite the level of duncery that you have?

You indeed have no idea, you have no ability to follow basic logic in a conversation, I have tried to explain things to you a dozen times now and it has no effect. But at least you are coming to the realization that you have no idea about the logic in this conversation.

Well then there is absolutely no downside or barrier to playing the Van Geet along with other first moves and systems, just as I have been saying this entire time, so you have just completely neutered your own argument haven't you, dunce?

jesus christ are you this dumb? have you EVER prepared agaisnt someone's repertoire before? and its there repertoire more than 5 moves deep?
the point of comparing 1.e4 vs 1.nc3* (when ONLY played to transpose) is to measure how much thorough prep an opponent would need to not end up in foreign territory. How much your opponent knows about an opening is like fog of war unless you research them, if i know someone plays just 1.e4 or just 1.nc3 in that way, i need far more prep for the e4 players than the 1.nc3 player. This isnt about surprise value, this is about not walking into 20 moves of prep in your preferred line and the openings with more viable sidelines are superior. 
even simpler example, say im a french defense player, after 1.e4 i need to be prepared for whole 9 yards of opening theory , nc3, nd2, e5, exchange, and a few sidelines like the reti. after 1.nc3 d5 2.e4 e6, im left with a few harmless independent lines, the exchange with nc3 added in which is harmless and the traditional nc3 which is what you are most prepared for. not only that if 2. d4 the veserov often transposes to french lines with a quirky qd3 or f3 by white, which just leaves the jobava to prep for. just on choosing 1.nc3 a french player went from having to remember his whole repertoire of variations to a much narrower set for little discernible gain

people play 1.nc3 to play original chess (and these independent lines have great surprise value) and if black really insists on a solid well trodden path to have a choice between a safe main line and and risky offbeat play. Even the 1.nc3 bible "the knight on the left" while showing ways to try to remain original all the time , advises that the best strategy is combination of offbeat and transposition.

the reason almost all the great 1.nc3 players (With the possible exception of mestrovic who was a left knighter for life) are broad universal players is precisely because 1.nc3 lines are narrower and easier to play agaisnt so you broaden your repertoire to not have them focus so much on just that. if someone plays 6 openings, you wont spend nearly as much time on 1.nc3 as if you only played 2. how "preparable" you are as an opponent is very important in master level.

you keep insulting me with a 1700 BLITZ RATING, and 1300 bullet rating. im trying to remain classy and not point out your congenital condition but you making it real difficult here...