Smashing the Scandinavian
Submitted by
Phobetor on Mon, 01/05/2009 at 12:22pm.
For almost two years I played the Scandinavian (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5) as black, which taught me two important things. Not only did I learn how to play the opening best as black and what the plans and strategies are for black, but also did I learn how white can give black a very hard time equalising, and how white should play the opening. Losing games as black did not only teach me what can go wrong for black, but also how white can win, even against prepared Scandinavian players!
After getting some bad results against prepared opponents, I stopped playing the Scandinavian a while ago. The only times I play Scandinavian games now are when I am white and my opponent plays 1... d5. Yesterday was another of those games. One of the variations I hated the most in the period I played the Scandinavian was when white delays the move Ng1-f3, but first develops the rest with Nc3, d4, Bc4, Bd2, Qe2. This gives white one crucial tempo, which allows him to play d4-d5, while with the moves Nf3 and ...Bb4 included, this would not be possible.
In the game this also lead to a critical position for black. White manages to open the center early, while black is neither developed nor castled. Black had to be very careful all of his moves, and while he played the best moves most of the game, he made one small mistake around move 20, which gave me a winning position right away.
Below is the game with annotations.
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