the scandinavian should no be an opening you are afraid of. Out of opening it was better for white. In fact there shoud be no opening to be afraid of.
You got lucky not to lose, for example move 19, black could win a free rock and the game with knight d4. He didnt see it, you didnt see it, and you played 30 more moves and won.
Conclusion it doesnt matter the opening, let it be scandinavian, chinesse or african lol. Tactics matter, strategy and endgame technique. Train those.
Just like to say you had the lovely knight at g6 on move 13 which was practically keeping black in a bind...then you swopped it off for a very inactive bishop, this seemed anti positional. There is no rush to win with a nice knight like that...calmly develop your pieces and your advantage in time and space will soon become clear later when tactics start appearing in your favour.
Hi BigFoxy90,
A couple of comments on your game. I encourage you to look up the correct response to your opponents move in the opening where you were out of theory. For example, lets say after 3...Qe5+ you did not know what to immediately do. Look up, whether in a book such as modern chess openings (MCO) or a website ( I like to use 365chess.com), the correct response and try to understand why. If you played the correct response great keep going until you or your opponent is out of theory. This allows one to build up opening knowledge over time. In my personal opinion, your biggest weakness is tactics. If you worked on tactics on a daily basis you will easily be over 1000 in no time. Also they do not have to be hard tactics, just focus on basic tactics. Like 1 to 3 move tactics.
You played the first 7 moves perfectly.
When the game reached the middle game position with so many pieces attacking each other, it could have gone either way. Dropping the knight back to Nh4 on move 23 gave you opponent some chances. You had another rook doing nothing at that point and moving it to the g1 square and doubling your rooks would give you a powerful attack. Always try to get all of your pieces developed before your opponent.
When it reached the rook vs two knights endgame it is a very even position. Your rook is better at capturing pawns than two knights. I think you did well. Overall you played pretty well. You had a lot of critical positions to deal with and mostly did okay.
The main point from me is to when you are under attack remember to look for opportunities to bring another piece into the game. In general, it is a very common mistake to think "I'm under attack I need to move to safety" and play the wrong.
Study some master games. You will generally see that they activate their rooks much earlier than amateur players do. They will often move a rook in the opening for example to the c-file when it doesn't yet attack anything and is not guaranteed to attack anything.
So I just played this garbage game and somehow came away with the win. It was a blunderful game and I feel like I missed some opportunities. Admittedly, the wayward queen out of the Scandinavian is something I've always feared. I've been wrecked by these openings before. I feel I could have played this better. So any honest input would be greatly appreciated.
ELO is still climbing though. Hoping to get to 1000 by my birthday. 🎂
Good vibes to everyone.