I Hate the Scandinavian. How to crush?

Sort:
Avatar of GreatestSifou

Challenge me

Avatar of technical_knockout

blueemu the difference is that white hasn't commited to d4 yet & his development advantage shouldn't be underestimated.

Jerry_Attrich is an expert in my area who specializes in this line:  he's currently 2125 blitz (99.5th percentile) & has countless wins with his pet opening on here.

mike's in my friends list if you want to see the opening in action... just click on any game he's won.

Avatar of technical_knockout

that's how mike transposes to it too... you guys would make a great bughouse team.

Avatar of Mousetorturer

2.Nc3 gives nothing. After dxe4 3.Nxe4 Qd5?!: What do you do anyway? I thought you dont want to play the mainlines? There is no good way to avoid them.

Avatar of spideypowers
If you get stuck with the Scandinavian defense, then search on YouTube how to crush the Scandinavian defense
Avatar of technical_knockout

this is a better forum for chess advice.  🙂

Avatar of Mousetorturer

Well this all leads to instant equality. The topic is how to crush the Scandi and it only can be done with 2.exd5 and 3.Nc3.

3.Nf3 is possible but there is a small path to equality in this 3...Bg4 line and nothing new has been found.

Avatar of BearDog13

I havnt played any  Scandinavians yet so I cant say

 

Avatar of NikkiLikeChikki

@YouEvenLiftBro - there's no such thing as a tutorial that really teaches anything useful or fun against the Scandi without losing your advantage. Remember: the Scandi player plays it every time so if they are any good, they've seen everything because there's not a lot to see).

There are two types of Scandi players: at the lower levels there are those who play it sort of like a slightly more sophisticated Wayward Queen attack by sliding their queen to h5 and playing for tricks.  They either try to target the c2 pawn with a knight fork, or failing that, they try to swing the queen kingside to a5 later to attack the king, and they always try to set it up with a bishop to c2. It's as predictable as Lindsay Lohan ending up in court.

The more "sophisticated" Scandi player retreats the queen (usually to d6 or d8), sets up a super solid Caro Kann pawn structure. The main plan here is to try to bore you to death.

@Illingworth, a GM wrote an article here on chess.com encapsulating how the Scandinavian is a crime against chess in 4 simple steps. Mind you, this is a direct quote:

"1. You virtually force a specific pawn structure in the Scandinavian. This means that you only need to master one type of position. 2. Your first 10-15 moves in the Scandinavian are generally the same (or similar) setups, with familiar middlegame and endgame plans from there. 3. You will often gain a time advantage early in the game. You can play standard ideas quickly, and rely on your greater experience and understanding of the positions... 4. You can master the Scandinavian relatively quickly, as there’s not a lot of opening theory to learn."

The citation from this peddler of ennui grandmaster is here: https://www.chess.com/blog/Illingworth/how-karpov-won-with-the-scandinavian.

THIS is why I hate the Scandinavian. This is why it's filth. This is why I resign and block. I don't want to play the same game over and over and over again. It's mindless, tedious, and uncreative, and it's pure torture to an attention-devoid individual such as myself.

Avatar of nklristic

For those of you who are interested in how to approach the Scandinavian as white, check this out:



This seems like a pretty active approach against it. Granted, he himself admits that Scandi is  fine for black if black knows what he is doing, but that one is obvious anyway.

Warning: It is over 3 hours long, so it is not for everyone. happy.png

Avatar of Optimissed
BearDog13 wrote:

I havnt played any  Scandinavians yet so I cant say

 

My daughter in law is one.

Avatar of EuweMaxx

 

I go for this setup against scandi, don't know if its sound or not, but seems to work

Avatar of Optimissed
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:

@YouEvenLiftBro - there's no such thing as a tutorial that really teaches anything useful or fun against the Scandi without losing your advantage. Remember: the Scandi player plays it every time so if they are any good, they've seen everything because there's not a lot to see).

There are two types of Scandi players: at the lower levels there are those who play it sort of like a slightly more sophisticated Wayward Queen attack by sliding their queen to h5 and playing for tricks.  They either try to target the c2 pawn with a knight fork, or failing that, they try to swing the queen kingside to a5 later to attack the king, and they always try to set it up with a bishop to c2. It's as predictable as Lindsay Lohan ending up in court.

The more "sophisticated" Scandi player retreats the queen (usually to d6 or d8), sets up a super solid Caro Kann pawn structure. The main plan here is to try to bore you to death.

@Illingworth, a GM wrote an article here on chess.com encapsulating how the Scandinavian is a crime against chess in 4 simple steps. Mind you, this is a direct quote:

"1. You virtually force a specific pawn structure in the Scandinavian. This means that you only need to master one type of position. 2. Your first 10-15 moves in the Scandinavian are generally the same (or similar) setups, with familiar middlegame and endgame plans from there. 3. You will often gain a time advantage early in the game. You can play standard ideas quickly, and rely on your greater experience and understanding of the positions... 4. You can master the Scandinavian relatively quickly, as there’s not a lot of opening theory to learn."

The citation from this peddler of ennui grandmaster is here: https://www.chess.com/blog/Illingworth/how-karpov-won-with-the-scandinavian.

THIS is why I hate the Scandinavian. This is why it's filth. This is why I resign and block. I don't want to play the same game over and over and over again. It's mindless, tedious, and uncreative, and it's pure torture to an attention-devoid individual such as myself.

<<The more "sophisticated" Scandi player retreats the queen (usually to d6 or d8), sets up a super solid Caro Kann pawn structure. The main plan here is to try to bore you to death.>>

You should definitely be able to get play against Qd6 and Qd8 didn't have a great reputation, except that it doesn't lose by force. Aren't you just admitting that you can't find a way to play that's creative and aggressive enough to get winning chances? If you have hopes of being a good player, you would have to find ways to win such games. Admittedly I gave up trying but the Centre Counter wasn't the only problem. I also disliked the Alekhine. Although I would win against it in Rapid and Blitz, by playing the four pawns attack, I didn't know the lines will enough to beat good players at slowplay.

So with one thing and another I changed to 1. c4 and found my results improved a lot. But wins against 1800 FIDE players were taking 60 to 70 moves after 1. c4 and I wanted faster wins so I wasn't tired out in the last round of tournaments and I switched to 1. d4, which I decided was potentially more aggressive than either 1. d4 or 1. c4 and I was getting wins inside 40 moves and often inside 30 with 1. d4. That's definitely the way to go, although the King's Indian is usually a 50 move job because white has to win on the queenside, the way I play it. But against badly played Slavs and Chigorins, often wins in 25 to 30 moves. And such openings take a good player to play well as black, so there's no disgrace in occasionally drawing. Sometimes when I was playing well, I'd draw with white and win with black.

Avatar of Optimissed

Also, are you listening to the wrong advice, since this Illingworth doesn't seem worthy of the title?

Avatar of Dostovyebsky

What sort of racist forum is this?

Avatar of fissionfowl
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:

@YouEvenLiftBro - there's no such thing as a tutorial that really teaches anything useful or fun against the Scandi without losing your advantage. Remember: the Scandi player plays it every time so if they are any good, they've seen everything because there's not a lot to see).

At our level they aren't any good though. I don't think losing a theoretical advantage in the opening matters for non-masters.

Avatar of TR0LLKlNG

@fissionfowl

you have an 88% accuracy rate on rapid, that's exceedingly good, that's higher than Gotham. How much do you study? What books do you recommend

Avatar of nklristic
Civilian366 wrote:

@fissionfowl

you have an 88% accuracy rate on rapid, that's exceedingly good, that's higher than Gotham. How much do you study? What books do you recommend

You can't compare it though. They do not have the same opponents. Sure, you will play better moves on average as you get better, but it is not the same to have a good accuracy against an opponent with an average rating of 1 620 and a good accuracy against titled players.

Imagine if one basketball player plays in the NBA and has 36% 3 point shooting, and on the other hand we have someone who plays some business basketball league with colleagues and has the same 3 point shooting percentage. It can't really be compared.

Avatar of fissionfowl
Civilian366 wrote:

@fissionfowl

you have an 88% accuracy rate on rapid, that's exceedingly good, that's higher than Gotham. How much do you study? What books do you recommend

What nklristic said.

Avatar of NikkiLikeChikki

@optimissed - I don't know why people feel compelled to tell me that I should play against this opening. I'm never going to have to prepare for it in a tournament, I don't care about my rating, and I play for fun. If my main goal is to have fun and this opening causes me to have the opposite of fun, tell me why I should bother? My opponent gets the win and all is well with the world.

Think about what GM Illingworth is saying. He's saying that people should choose the Scandinavian **because** it's a theoretical wasteland where you don't have to remember anything and you can play it the same almost every time. Perhaps there are minor ways to mix it up, but in my experience the games are all the same. Not fun. Not gonna do it. Why are people so appalled that I won't play a game that I don't like?