What do you think of the Scandi?

I like the Scandinavian. By playing 1. e4, white has blundered their chances of playing the Blackmar-Diemer gambit. By playing 1... d5, black charitably gives them the opportunity to correct their mistake by playing 2. d4.

Anand was better against Kasparov on his peak. So, it should be ok, shouldn’t it?

I dont get all this Scandi talk, whats the motivation behind playing it, its probably a cool thing to do these days but it still seems pretty illogical to me, I mean if you want to have a solid repertoire against 1.e4 than you can play the Caro, or some 1.e4 e5 lines like the Breyer, Berlin.. even the Sicilian offers some calmer positional lines, Kan for example.. on the other hand if you want something sharp you can play the Najdorf, Dragon and stuff like that..

such a bad opening

That is not all that insightful luggelucker.

I like it, play it exclusively as Black against 1.e4 (modern variation / Portuguese). It offers Black lots of play and generally good practical chances with an unbalanced position. If White avoids the more dynamic lines then Black's position is very solid.

Now just some rumour mongering / speculation.....

Quite recently (~2 months ago) there was an anonymous player on here @aqtobe (now closed) who was playing the modern Scandinavian/ Portuguese exclusively as Black, it looked like a training account of someone, uh, quite decent as this player was no. 1 on lichess blitz rankings with a rating of ~2950 (not many players in the world who can do this).

Now recently Magnus has been playing these lines moderately frequently in speed chess, see eg his bullet matches with Alireza or grizzlybear.

You see where this is going...of course no proof though!

People need to play the modern variation more(!!). I love it as black, especially the Icelandic Gambit

@piscatorox How did you study the opening? Can you recommend me some material or ideas? Id like to know more since I am currently studying it

oof

Imho, when penguins are involved the situation usually becomes hopeless

@Nikkoi I learnt it as a child and have played it for years, so mostly learnt it through praxis. If you want a reference, buy David Smerdon’s recent book which focuses exclusively on this approach to the Scandinavian.

If you want one idea you won’t find in books (this one is home brew )

In the Icelandic gambit don’t play Bxe6 but instead Bc5.

So 1. e4 d5 2. Exd5 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. dxe6 Bc5

With a sample continuation 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Exf7 Kxf7 7. Ng5+ Kg6

The resulting positions are ultra-sharp and (in my opinion) offer excellent practical chances, especially as White won’t know what they are doing and Black has a tremendous attack for the cost of 2 pawns and a developed King. If you are interested just explore the position after Bc5 with Stockfish, I think there is no public theory on this.