oh yeah lol I almost forgot about the knight odds
so lets vote for which one we're giving away
I do have to agree with mainline here that e4 is better in knight odds games
Me vs. All
Sort:
Give away the b1 knight and play some sort of Muzio 
ooh I like that
so b1 knight dies - 2 votes
Mainline_Novelty wrote:
Tell that to Morphy... geez, don't you know your classics?
What classics do you mean? I've found his knight odds match vs James Thompson, where he was playing the f4, e3, Nf3, b3, Bb2 setup.
that's the nimzo larsen setup
Right; note however that Morphy had to play f4 first, otherwise the knight woulda been blocking the pawn.
ok
coon74 wrote:
Mainline_Novelty wrote:
Tell that to Morphy... geez, don't you know your classics?
What classics do you mean? I've found his knight odds match vs James Thompson, where he was playing the f4, e3, Nf3, b3, Bb2 setup.
Morphy was well known for playing King's Gambits, Evans Gambits, etc. and sacking all his pieces and mating his opponents and odds games were no exception :D
Hmm, it's surprisingly quiet here.
There are so few recorded odds games and most of them are so old that I've failed to find out how known players who didn't usually play 1. e4 in normal chess started their odds games. (The second biggest contributor of knight odds games - Tarrasch - was a Ruy Lopez fan with White.)
The two prevalent first moves were e4 and f4. It's rather a matter of taste...
So let's give up the queen's knight and start with 1.e4, and if 1... e5, then 2. Bc4 (so that d3 doesn't block the bishop later).
so what is the final vote?
(I think) we've voted to five away our QN and play 1.e4.
2.d4
In white:
I think after d4 it might be a bit difficult to defend the e-pawn, so maybe a line with d3?
its not white
Frankwho, you've failed to make it white; to do so, edit your post, highlighting the text to be hidden, then clicking the 'A' button above it and choosing the bottom right white colour square.
After 2. d4, the e4 pawn is still quite defendable by, say, Bd3, f3 (then the knight can go to e2 to defend e4).
However, I vote for 2. Bc4, and if 2... Bb7, then 3. d3.
I vote d4
As said above, I won't mind this move either. Let it be.
Tbh, I was expecting 1... d5, but 1... b6 is also cute, that's something most opponents of Morphy and Tarrasch were incapable of doing in the 19th century 
I like Nf3 too, but aren't we giving knight odds? IMO e4's better in an odds game
Assuming that the queen's knight is missing (we didn't specify it, btw), the e4 pawn will lack protection.
Tell that to Morphy... geez, don't you know your classics?