Depends on whether you like the resultant middlegame positions.
French will let you play for a win more often.
Do you consider the scandinavian a good defense? Do you think the french defense is better? explain
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Sep 28, 2017
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#3
poodle_noodle wrote:
Depends on whether you like the resultant middlegame positions.
French will let you play for a win more often.
That is a good point. Thank you for the feedback! Cheers!
Sep 28, 2017
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#4
As far as I know, the Scandinavian Defense must always lose a tempo for Black, if White plays correctly. That makes it inherently defensive from the start. Mostly it's played only by beginners. The French is much more respected by GMs.
Black's queen loses a tempo.
Black's knight loses a tempo.
Sep 28, 2017
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#5
Sqod wrote:
As far as I know, the Scandinavian Defense must always lose a tempo for Black, if White plays correctly. That makes it inherently defensive from the start. Mostly it's played only by beginners. The French is much more respected by GMs.
Black's queen loses a tempo.
Black's knight loses a tempo.
White loses a tempi first by capturing on d5, a point so many people miss it's ludicrous.
At move 0 there are no pieces developed and white is on move
After move 3...Qa5 each side has 1 piece developed and white is on move
Therefore after 3 moves no one is down a tempo.
Sep 28, 2017
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#6
And of course in your 2nd position, black is ahead in development (although white has a big center).
Sep 28, 2017
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#7
The scandinavian main line loses a tempo...I totally agree with you guys.....however I like playing the gambit lines in the scandinavian. They won't work too well against a master level opponent, but they can be very tricky.
Sep 28, 2017
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#8
LeonSKennedy992 wrote:
The scandinavian main line loses a tempo...I totally agree with you guys.....however I like playing the gambit lines in the scandinavian. They won't work too well against a master level opponent, but they can be very tricky.
If you're referring to the Icelandic Gambit, forget it. The second line I posted above avoids that line, and once I even had an OTB player comment on how I was too wise to fall into that gambit.
As for tempo loss, I maintain that Black not only loses a tempo at the outset, but continues to do so. The black queen at a5 is subject to more tempo loss via Bd2 and discovered attack later, and the knight at b6 is subject to more tempo loss with c5. Why do you think ...c6 is a characteristic move in the Scandinavian? Largely it's so that Black has a place to hide his queen (especially to the c7-square from the a5-square) from continued harassment. Why do you think GMs tend not to play it? It's a second rate opening, "suboptimal" if you like that term better.
Sep 28, 2017
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#9
LilBoat21 wrote:
Didn't you beat a master with the Scandinavian?
yes, but I was a bit lucky. He underestimated me.
Sep 28, 2017
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#10
Sqod wrote:
LeonSKennedy992 wrote:
The scandinavian main line loses a tempo...I totally agree with you guys.....however I like playing the gambit lines in the scandinavian. They won't work too well against a master level opponent, but they can be very tricky.
If you're referring to the Icelandic Gambit, forget it. The second line I posted above avoids that line, and once I even had an OTB player comment on how I was too wise to fall into that gambit.
As for tempo loss, I maintain that Black not only loses a tempo at the outset, but continues to do so. The black queen at a5 is subject to more tempo loss via Bd2 and discovered attack later, and the knight at b6 is subject to more tempo loss with c5. Why do you think ...c6 is a characteristic move in the Scandinavian? Largely it's so that Black has a place to hide his queen (especially from the a5-square) from continued harassment. Why do you think GMs tend not to play it? It's a second rate opening, "suboptimal" if you like that term better.
GMs depend on memorization, preparation, and coaches who analyze opponents games....this is NOT chess. It is precisely the reason why Fischer quit chess and created Chess 960
Sep 28, 2017
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#11
If the scandinavian sucks, then why did Carlsen play it TWICE with great results, a draw and a win.
Sep 28, 2017
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#12
Looks like everything is playable to me. I think I recall seeing Kramnik playing it at the top some years ago. I don't usually play it. But I did play it the other day, and won:
LeonSKennedy992 έγραψε:
If the scandinavian sucks, then why did Carlsen play it TWICE with great results, a draw and a win.
He played it three times actually, always against the same opponent (Caruana)- this must be some kind of sick carlsen humour. He played all reasonable third moves as Black, 3...Qa5, 3...Qd6 and 3...Qd8 (not 2...Nf6 though, provocation has some limits!) and scored two points in total. Caruana jokingly said that if Carlsen will play 3...Qe5+ in their next encounter, then white would have good chances to win!
Sep 28, 2017
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#14
LeonSKennedy992 wrote:
If the scandinavian sucks, then why did Carlsen play it TWICE with great results, a draw and a win.
Here we go again. GMs *occasionally* play offbeat openings as: (1) surprise value; (2) to get weaker opponents out of book earlier so that memorized lines are rendered useless and general chess skill dominates the game. When you're #1 on the planet you can get away with such things. You have a long way to go before you're anywhere near that level.
Sep 28, 2017
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#15
DeirdreSkye wrote:
How do you explain Karjakin's defeat in the same opening from a much lower rated opponent?
Strange game, I feel like white really shouldn't lose that middlegame. h5-h4 is very slow, but in the end everything works out perfectly for black so obviously white made errors.
I had to ask the engine why 27.Bxd5 was wrong, for example... but it's not wrong, white is just better after 27.Bxd5 Rxd5 28.cxd5 Qf4 29.Rxe5
And sure, I can lose positions like this, but I think not a good day for Sergey.
Sep 28, 2017
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#16
LeonSKennedy992 wrote:
I play both haha. I started as a little kid playing the main line of the scandinavian, the switched to the French. I preferred the French for awhile, but the EXCHANGE variation just bothers me. I usually win when white does the exchange variation against my french defense, but it is soooo boring. I have fallen asleep while playing it haha.
Scandinavian's fun, though I find against strong opponents, white's able to hold onto a slight advantage throughout the game, often moving all the way into the endgame.
French brought me my first win over an International Master, so I've always viewed it favorably.
As mentioned in the other thread: Exchange French never has to be boring. Just castle the opposite side of white. If white castles short, black castles long. If white castles long, black castles short. Fireworks ensue.
Sep 30, 2017
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#17
DeirdreSkye wrote:
No , when you are No 1 in the world you can't get away with "such things" if your opponent is No 3 unless they are "playable things".
I think we amateurs condemn everything we don't understand.
Just like French exchange is drawish ,Owens defense is crap and Scandinavian is bad.Hardly any of us is capable of saying why.It's because the queen gets out early.That was last century's dogma.Welcome to 21st century.
p.s. Don't confuse popularity with efficiency.There are reasons it is not(and never will be) the most popular opening and these reasons have nothing to do with efficiency.It's a relatively simple opening that doesn't offer many options(in comparison with openings like Sicilian , Spanish , French , Caro Kan etc.) and creates the same or close to the same positions.It is easy to prepare against it but that has a meaning in top level where a minimal advantage can turn into a full point.In the "non-perfect chess' world it doesn't matter.
Nice commentary, and I largely agree, except for a few things:
(1) I didn't say the Scandinavian Defence wasn't playable. I agree it's playable, sound, and all that, it's just not optimal.
(2) According to your logic, because this is the 21st century we can expect GMs to be the first to see the light and start flocking to use the Scandinavian Defense. Somehow I really can't see that happening.
(3) I believe many people here *know* why the Exchange French is drawish: it produces absolutely symmetrical positions for several moves into the game, and with balanced pawn structures besides. Most openings that do that, especially the Ultra-symmetrical English and Double Ruy Lopez (a variation of the Four Knights Game), have unusually high draw rates, and this can be proven with statistics, so it's not just opinion or conjecture. In a symmetrical opening each additional move into the opening tends to increase the draw rate rapidly.
Sep 30, 2017
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#18
No, no. .numbers 1 and 3 are both invalid. GM's do play the Scandinavian and the lack of "flocking" is just a trivial point. And if you haven't given any good argument on recent posts asserting that the exchange French is also a good battle field, and Silman's recent article on symmetry shows that its not at all a drawn situation.
DeirdreSkye έγραψε:
In both 3...Qa5 and 3...Qd6 lines Black will need to play ...c6 to make c7 available for the queen.The retreat of the queen to c7 is fairly common in both these lines
In 3...Qd8 line the queen might again end at c7 after ...c6
The slight advantage of 3...Qd8 is that the queen is safer and one more early queen move is not necessary as in the other lines.The slight disadvantage is that Black loses the early long castling option that is available in the other lines but that option is very dangerous anyway.
I think that 3...Qd8 is not only the safer but surprisingly the most flexible of all 3.
3...Qd8 is fine, but has a slight drawback: after 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 the move 5...a6 does not work so well because of 6.g3!, and 5...c6 6.Bc4! is not better.
So it seems that Black has to play 5...Bg4 and concede the bishop pair to white after 6.h3. Sure, he is very solid and all that, but he has to defend a technical position.
I play both haha. I started as a little kid playing the main line of the scandinavian, the switched to the French. I preferred the French for awhile, but the EXCHANGE variation just bothers me. I usually win when white does the exchange variation against my french defense, but it is soooo boring. I have fallen asleep while playing it haha.