MOST SAFE OPENING FOR BLACK AGAINST E4

i love black playing the scandinavian, i just keep whooping it, probably because my imagination is full of blonde swedish bombshells for the entire game.

An opening that never loses? The outcome of a chess game is not determined by the opening but by the skill of each player.

You can even win in the french exchange variation If you are the better player.

I played the Slav Exchange variation against a stronger player but I still lost with white because I didnt understand the position.  

I RARely join clubs.

italian game, four knights. be careful not to fall asleep while playing, though

Depends on which level you're playing. When I started out in chess I used to play it with white a lot. I pinned the knight on f6 and after h6 i retreated my bishop to h4. After my opponent castled short I castled long and played Rdg1 and then pushed my h and g pawn to attack the weakness on h6.

It worked quite well and I won a lot of tournaments in our chess club until I played stronger players who answered my kingside attack with an attack in the center. Then I changed my strategy.

The italian/spanish four knights is still not to be underestimated. If you look deeper into the position there are quite some subtleties to discover. I think I'll try these openings again in blitz/bullet. I'm still learning.

One of my favorite games in that opening is Anand- Mamedyarov

Lyudmil Tsvektov, who played thousand of games against Stockfish and Komodo, did rather well when Stockfish played 1.e4 e6.   In one of his games the game went on with 2.d3 d5 3. Nc3 d4 4. Nce2 c5 5. f4 Nf6 6. h3 (preparing g2-g4, with a massive pawn storm; Stockfish should have played here h7-h5) 6...Be7 7.g4 h6 8.Bg2 Nc6 9.b3 0-0 10. Nf3 Qc7 11. 0-0 b6 12. Bd2 Bb7 13. a3 a5. Tsvektov wrote on this move: "Well, this is a positional mistake, allowing white to funcitionally close the position on the queenside" 14. a4! Now Stockfish is deprived of any counterplay on the queenside, and white is now clearly better. The game was published "Human Versus Machine: How to Beat Stockfish and Komodo" (game 2).

Tsvetkov's books were highly criticised by patzers, but strong players like GM Smerdon saw several interesting aspects of one of Stvektov's books ("The Secrets of Chess"). I enjoy reading his books. I am trying to improve my positional understanding by studying his works. By the way, Tsvetkov won the game in 37 moves.

Here is the game I was talking about:

I used to play 1...e5, but changed to the Scandi after I realised that most people don't know much how to play against it. 1...e5 is, on the other hand, the typical way how beginners play, so most people have at least an idea how to play the white side against this move. Another reason why I stopped playing  1...e5 was that I was not able to understand a lot of moves played in the Italian Game, so I took a book where I could ask the author the reasons behind the moves. This is possible to do in the website "Chessable" - if I would have found there a high-level complete repertoire based on 1...e5 I probably would take it, so the true reason behind my choice was more or less coincidental. 

If you like something safe the caro khan is for you, my favorite is the french, I always can create some counter play and its kind of safe, but if you like to attack and been attack the sicilian, you can always use a weird opening like 1. e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 f5!? but I dont recomend that  

Well, you might be strong compared with most people here, but compared with the real strong players you are still a patzer, right? :-) 

Okay, it is not really fair to say this, but you should not blame somebody to be "only 1491; this is still above average here (and I can imagine you was not born with such a strong rating, was you?). 

Given away the bishop pair to damage the pawn-structure? Is this the theoretical best move here? 

Yeah, that's the main move. But the play that arises from that position is quite interesting. It was also played on master level several times.

It offers chances for both sides. I think there are many things you can learn from these positions without being overwhelmed by wild positions like in the najdorf which is both tactically and strategically complex.

Wenn es dir lieber ist können wir uns auf Deutsch unterhalten. Ou podemos falar portugues, ou italiano, ou espanol. I speak four languages fluently and can communicate in seven or eight other languages (French I can read, but not really speak). I am not really an expert in any of these languages, but in three of them I can give a talk without much preparation or write a scientific work. This is above average for most people, but here in Switzerland this is not really special. 

Well, define "upper hand". If you say that in the mainlines white has more space and the bishop pair and therefore the upper hand, I would say yes. But experts regard the Scandi as rather solid. The position is often rather closed, so the bishop pair is not that relevant, and it is not easy for white to prove that the advantage is good enough for a win. Have a look on the game Sermek (2532) vs Djukic (2521) Portoroz 2005, or Manolov (2340) vs Dorfman (2610), Elenite 1992 to see how good players play the Scandi with 1...Qd8. In the last games people are not really prepared against 7...c5!, striking in the center with a temporary pawn-sacrifice. Have a look at the game after 19...Ke7 and tell me witch side you will prefer to play. Of course this is only one line, but white is playing what is considered the main line after 9.Nxd1. 

I agree with you when you say that his opinion on 1...e6 based on computer evaluation is weak, we are not discussing this (see # 41 showing how somebody won against Stockfish with white after 1.e4 e6 2. d3). I just doesn't like if somebody use a player's rating as an argument; this is just not fair. But this is just my opinion, you are free to do what do you want.

I also play tennis. Sometimes I play against much stronger (but arrogant) players than me. Usually these people forget the enormous amount of money parents invested to make these players improve, in the hope they would get professional tennis players in the age of 18 or 19. Now they are something like number 200 or 300 in the Swiss ranking and faaaar away from a professional career. 

There is nothing wrong about this, but these players just keep the right perspective and understand that most hobby players didn't have the chance to train to get much better. They play occasionally, train a little bit or not all. But they feel nevertheless that they can also discuss about tennis with better players and to have their own opinion about the game.

Sometimes we can see the same here. Some chess players are rather strong compared with the rest of us, but they are unbelievable weak compared with chess players who are able to live comfortable by only playing chess. They are actually patzers when compared with a GM, and absolute beginners when compared with super GMs.

Sometimes I get involved with people rating 900 or 1000 in chess.com, but usually it doesn't come to my mind to use their rating in the discussion to blame there (okay, I did it already, but I regretted afterwards).  

In any case, if I see your rating and your games, I am convinced that I will never get even closer to your level, even if I would invest all my free time to improve my game in the next 10 or 15 years. So I respect your level and I don't think you should go on with this negative discussion. Peace! :-)

what happened to riagan ? suddenly posts with more than one word!

Shocking!