Gotham Scandinavian Chess Opening

ladies and gentlemen welcome to a chess opening video that may change your life in this video I'm going to be covering the Gotham Scandinavian which is an opening that has netted me a 100% win rate in a specific variation and an 80% overall win rate in the entire opening right now I am loving the Scandinavian I'm loving the way that I play it a while ago couple of years ago I made kind of a basic introductory Scandinavian video this one will be completely different and I also recently launched a Scandinavian defense course if you're lucky enough to catch this video the first day it comes out that course is on sale right now I'll put a link in the description but also it has a massive free sample so if you like what you see in this video the first line of the description will be that course and you can get the free sample 100% free no questions asked and you can add the Scandinavian to your toolbox so the way this video is going to work is I'm going to analyze the Scandinavia the way that I like it the Gotham scandy then I'm going to show you three games that I've played with it including against the number two ranked player on planet Earth if you can play your favorite chess opening against the number two ranked player in the world and get the position that I got I think this opening is worth showcasing then I will show you a couple of my other highlights and victories uh and um we're going to have a great time so the Scandinavian defense is a really fun opening and it begins after E4 and the reason why it's fun and it's offbeat is that it forces white into a decision from the very first move now the computer is always going to say white is a touch better in certain openings but I want you not to even look at the evaluation but rather look at the position white is going to be studying Kings Pawn Sicilian French Carl Khan this move forces white now to react to us and the other reason I like the Scandinavian is the odds of you getting a certain position on the board are very high that's the effectiveness of learning and opening the chance of you getting Pawn takes D5 is over 90% And after you take back with the queen of course there's other openings like the Portuguese Gambit which I do like very much as well this is the pure Scandinavian bringing out the queen and the odds of you getting attacked by this Knight are also about 80% so the odds of this this being the opening position of your opening are extremely high and now the retreating squares for this queen are off to the side one back and all the way back all the way back is actually quite popular slightly back is the third most popular but I would like to rotate Our Queen to the edge of the board and here is going to be our developing plan in the Gotham scandy okay previous video I had like an introductory concept I said develop your knight like this develop your Bishop but I have worked on this opening and I've perfected this opening and now I'm going to share it with all of you the way we're going to develop is we're going to play Knight to F6 the bishop will frequently come to the F5 Square sometimes it will go to G4 depending on how white develops and then we will develop our Pawn we will develop our Bishop and depending on which setup white chooses we will Castle there or we will Castle there remember listen to me if you are confused at any point there's a free sample that will go in much greater detail than this video with exercises with videos with drills all my courses come with multiple ways of learning and opening not just video so if you haven't checked out Chesley which is my chess courses website mine they're they don't sponsor me uh you definitely should now the most common setup by white is D4 Knight F3 okay this setup with the pawn here with the Knight here and the bishop out on the C4 Square it can happen in any order it can be Knight out it could be Pawn out but generally white is going to play like this and if white plays like this we will F fulfill our Gotham scan and the uh opening setup if however white decides to Target Our Queen which does happen quite frequently like we develop our Knight and then white instead of playing this move uh let's say plays Bishop to D2 then we play Bishop G4 in one go and the idea is while white has blocked uh their Queen's defense of the center and they are targeting us here we're safe we're safe don't panic when the bishop comes over here if the Knight cannot actually create a meaningful threat if the Knight goes there we take it if the Knight goes there we can't take it but we will slide Our Queen over to safety if the Knight goes there then you know we take it so you got to be you you got to be a little bit on your toes here and it depends where white is going to set up but all of that is covered Bishop G4 Knight C6 Castle Queen side is the way we're going to play the most common way that white likes to play this position is Knight F3 Bishop F5 Bishop C4 we play Pawn to E6 and I like to put my Bishop there trade the bishop for the Knight and I will show you where I win 100 100% of my games Bishop D2 Bishop B4 again white could play castles then Bishop D2 doesn't matter Bishop here trade the bishop for the Knight when it's attacked only when it's attacked only when it's attacked Slide the queen back to the B6 Square where it's comfortable and from this position I have played I believe 15 games at this very moment and I have a 15-0 record which is unheard of in an opening the position is roughly balanced and what I like to do before I commit my king is I like to play Knight C6 and I'm setting a trap I have eyes on the D4 pawn and for this game what's going to happen is I'm going to put a rook on d8 going to put pressure on White's position like this this bishop which I've granted to White the dark squared Bishop is not particularly powerful or useful it's sort of stuck stuck and I will try to remove the defender of the Knight win the pawn or I'm going to try to put pressure here or put my knight on e4 or D5 take this bishop and remove the control like this positions in the balance but I've had people play all sorts of things and the trap that I'm setting is Pawn to D5 the Trap is that I haven't castled and my opponent is going to think what a dummy oh my goodness I'm going to attack their King but since I hav't castled short side I'm setting a trap to Castle long and suddenly white is caught they can't take the Knight because they're going to lose the queen so I'm threatening to just simply take this Pawn on D5 and I will show you a game uh a bit later uh which uh which went exactly like this I've had a few games go like this and and white is already almost lost white has to defend basically perfectly because the alternative is simply losing the queen now you still have to be accurate surely you know you don't just win the game because you get a good position from the opening but this is about as good as you could ask for in about 15 moves and if they don't fall for that if they play Rook E1 we Castle we put pressure on the Knight we put the Rook on the file and this is just about the most stable position that we can get in this opening we will put pressure on these pawns we'll put pressure on the defile get rid of the Knight or we will go get rid of that Bishop to damage white structure and then we go on to convert a very nice game that is the most common setup in this opening so again relatively straightforward right we developed our Knight and our Bishop to F5 in this setup if white lets us we will play Bishop to B4 we will trade off the Knight when we are attacked Knight C6 Queen slides back to B6 and then we will castle one way or another if white Falls for our trap we go long if white doesn't then we will go short that's a lot to remember if that's too much to remember you can obviously simplify it down for yourself um the the the more you learn about this opening the more you learn kind of like the intricacies and the details uh you will learn that the knight jump to the middle of the board is very lethal that's another subtle detail your opponent if they try to trap you with the Knight you got to respect that and one of the best ways to get out with your queen in the Scandinavian is to play Pawn to C6 you might not like that your queen is out and about and so uh if you are developing in a certain way and your opponent is putting pressure on you you might just say you know what I just want to bring my queen back like this and that's probably fine as well that's technically not the way I want you to play the Scandinavian but you know what this is still a very solid position you have borderline no problems your rock solid your opponent cannot go D5 You'll Play Knight D7 and start advancing ing your pawns like this put a knight on the D5 square and all your pieces are developed everything is good and your opponent has no obvious weaknesses in your position that they could potentially exploit so the position um is very easy to play actually and um again I'm no rocket scientist but I've been basically playing the Scandinavian the exact same way with some small you know detail changes of whether I put the bishop on that square or that square very subtle if you play the Scandinavian all the time with a bishop on F5 you'll probably be fine if you play the Scandinavian all the time with a bishop on G4 you'll probably also be fine but my Gotham scandy is a mixture of these two moves depending on how white sets up again free sample you can go play with it I'm telling you right now if you're like what this is too fast I I can't I'm telling you to add to your knowledge you can try my free sample like there's no strings attached okay so uh if you want to take your learning to the next level I do have a free offering of every course but specifically this one I'm really encouraging that you uh you try some of these out cuz it's 100 I'm not bsing you um now let's take a look at some games okay obviously there's a lot more and I could probably make an hour video covering the theory of the Scandinavian but it's good to look at some practical games I played Fabiano Carana with the Scandinavian and Fabiano respected this opening so much that might be sarcasm that in this position he didn't even want to mess with my opening and instead he played a goofy move which is night to H4 nobody has ever played this against me I've played probably 200 Scandinavian games just a very offbeat move trying to get my bishop and what did I do I just slid it back to G6 I said Fabiano you want to take it you're going to have to open up my rook and Fabby you know and and and and you see here I'm kind of deciding which way I'm going to Castle I ended up playing here and castling short and um Fabby took my Bishop I kept a rock solid Pawn structure I developed my Rook to d8 and already here I'm just maintaining relatively complete equality against the second best chess player in the world and my game plan is pretty straightforward I didn't get the exact setup I I showed you but again I have my pieces all out on their active squares and the Scandinavian is a relatively shy and tame opening until you find the pawn breaks so in every Scandinavian position you've got those Pawn braks that'll open up the position make your position come alive and your queen will either come back this way but in this game My Queen rotated to that side of the board which is another very common way of playing that Scandinavian um and you'll even see early on in the Scandinavian games if your opponent never even attack attacks your queen like if they just play Knight F3 you can develop and Castle Queen side and then when they try to come after your Bishop you can bring the queen not there but you could bring the queen here and offer up the bishop as a sacrifice and then just try to go Checkmate your opponent Queen F4 Queen H5 be careful if you play Queen H5 right away there's a fork but that's sort of the general idea that's also in the course by the way um but in this game I got a very solid structure and then I went for E5 and I just basically said you know what I'm not going to respect Fabi I'm clearly respecting him because I'm down 40 seconds and I'm terrified but um I got a completely reasonable position against him take take he went Knight here I brought my queen back to defend my pawn and I created this structure we have one two three four five out of six pawns on light squares and I said Fabiano come and get me and he might overtake me in the long run but this is everything you can ask for in an opening if you can be equal terms with Tony mo one of the best players in the world and then be playing for a win and be competitive in the game a little while later it's great and you know we we started shuffling we got into a big fight for the center I don't have a single piece in my position that is loose meaning like can be targeted these pieces are not guarded but it's very difficult to attack them B3 rookie eight and um I was ready to get nervous in this game and end up losing it but then we cross 30 moves and the position is still completely equal now do I have 12 seconds absolutely I'm terrified of my opponent but the opening is a success as far as I'm concerned and I was very happy with this game because by the 35th move I'm still completely on equal terms and I was outmaneuvering I was targeting his weaknesses uh all of my pieces were active but you know as fate would have it I would get to 5 seconds on the clock and then at that point move 40 no opening can really save you we were shuffling we were maneuvering pieces started falling off the board and even here it's an equal end game but here I made a mistake I um I saw his Rook coming in I went here and unfortunately now he just plays Rook to D7 uh the best move here would have been for me to just activate my Pawn really quickly so that it would be difficult for him to swarm Rook D5 B4 if he goes after my Pawn I can try to play defense I'm passive and definitely white is playing this for a win but hey 40 moves against the second best player on the planet you're just trying to beat 12 and 1400s maybe 1800s and I was very proud of this and this is purely a Scandinavian you know this is not obviously a popular line I have never seen the move Knight H4 except in this game but look what I did I just brought out my pieces some of you may be wondering why I didn't develop my Bishop to the B4 Square I could have I could have but I decided to do it like this it's because he was you know his Knight had wandered off and he was playing in a slightly offbeat way so I thought I would Target his King but Bishop B4 would have also been all right and then I just kind of followed the game plan I just centralized struck in the center and who knows if my opponent was anybody except Fabiano maybe this would have been a nice win for me in a game where my opponent wasn't Fabiano this is from my final match in the recent I am not a GM speeds Championship I had made it to the finals and my opponent was Pina shalva AKA Flawless fighter uh and there we go this is one of the first Scandinavians I ever played so this Scandinavian was played October 2023 this is when I was in my early days of practicing this opening a little bit more consistently building up kind of my my knowledge and my opinions of of of of the opening I played Queen A5 we see this most common thing that I've showed you this is not what Fabiano played this is in a real game real live action castles and I played Bishop to B4 now technically very technical detail technically black is only supposed to play Bishop B4 when white plays Bishop D2 and the reason for that is after castles Bishop to B4 technically white can move the Knight cuz there's no King there anymore so white could say haha I'm maneuvering this way and now I'm going to kick you out and I've had that happen and what I do when that happens is I just remember like the Fabby game literally like the Fabby game right if A4 obviously I'll play A5 I don't want to get my queen trapped and then I will bring out my knight and it's just like the Fabiano game I mean seriously like let's say you know our opponent goes Bishop D2 we play Knight C6 it's the same setup that we had in the Fabiano game uh I can even show you see very similar structure so a lot of this stuff can overlap uh but she played Bishop D2 so we did something called a transposition it it transposed we took a different route but we got there uh we got there in the end so she played this bishop D2 and we just saw this in the introduction we know that here instead of castling I like to play Knight C6 because I want to set the trap for D5 if you Castle here you'll be fine A3 take take it's exactly what I was showing you your opponents might play Knight E5 and you will play Knight C6 Rook d8 Bishop G4 Knight E4 all of this already showed the this to you and it's got we go in a lot more detail in my free sample Knight C6 and there's the position and she fell into the Trap she's a very good player she's 2760 Blitz the people you're going to play are half that rating maybe 2,000 points even lower than that rating in Blitz and she fell into the Trap and I castled queenside now she's going to lose the pawn so what did she do she did something natural she took my knight she was like well without his Knight he's not actually threatening as much my center right but that opened the attack on her king plus I don't have to take right away and damage my pawns I can undevelop my knight and then take with the Knight I don't actually have to uh you know and that's exactly what I did here I could have played Knight to E7 but instead I went here and now my idea is to pressure the king but also just take the pawn without splitting up my pawns this must have been very annoying for her and what I did here is I simplified the position even further I took the Knight she went here I forked her forcing the queen to guard the bishop and then I did did this and now rather than splitting up my pawns I took on D5 so we've just played 17 moves and I've emerged from the opening with a clean Pawn up in what other opening do you get one of the purest forms of a pawn up advantage and not just a pawn up Advantage I am also looking to attack on the G file I'm also looking to put pressure on the queen side and that's life now of course this game was much more chaotic there was a lot more ups and downs and we will get into that and I will you know entertain you a little bit I tried to trade the Queens with her because she was attacking my pawns she did not want a queen trade I played Rook F5 and now we danced around here a little bit I tried to attack her but she defended and then I said H5 and this is the way I was going to play this position but her username is literally Flawless fighter so she began fighting she tried to kick out my queen I played Queen C6 she tried to Target the pawn your my king and as you can see I had a pretty big Advantage a couple of moves ago but right now I'm a little bit under Fire so B6 and she just goes directly at me right I could have converted this a little bit better maybe I could have have been a bit more aggressive but suddenly I'm like really on the defensive and she is activating her pieces Rook D3 she activates the queen I'm in bad shape I'm very nervous here definitely stressing and uh this could have been converted in a much better way but we will go through the game uh and the next game will be a very smooth conversion Rook C8 she took my Pawn I took this pawn pawn started falling off the board like uh you know uh like I don't like I don't know like what apples off a cart A5 she attacks my my queen so I can't take because my Rook is is hanging but I'm still the pawn up I'm still holding on I'm still a pawn up I'm surviving I'm still up a pawn and now I start lining up against our King but uh we're in a crazy scramble we both have 5 Seconds mistakes will probably be made Queen takes A4 she goes Queen H6 and um I managed to get into an endgame I have no idea why I didn't play Rook takes F2 check it's probably because I have three seconds on the clock but as you can see these pawns survive into the end game and I played A3 I played Rook A5 and now she can't stop me from queening so she took and she resigned because my Pawn is just making it through this is a very common Motif in a lot of my Scandinavian games I usually win that pawn from that opening Skirmish and then what I do is I just pressure on the queen side and then I go on and I win the game and I'm going to show you a game where I did exactly that this is a strong player 2500 again you're probably not even playing people who are 2500 watch how easy this opening can be E4 D5 take take Knight C3 and we are again in this position where I have won 100% of the time 100% now of course the criticism will be but Gotham there's positions where you've lost yes it's clickbait you don't always win 100% correct but in this particular branch which is the most popular which means you will face it the most I have 100 100% of the time which is how openings are effective if I'm wi if I'm getting 100% win rate and overall in the Scandinavian meaning in this position I'm getting 77 78% win rate it's a pretty darn effective opening 78% is crazy you're supposed to win 53% of the time it means that the positions are tried and tested and clearly pretty easy to play so again let's go back to that position let's see what happens when an opponent does not fall for the Trap I have had everything under the in this position thrown at me Rook E1 Pawn ta to H3 I've had opponents go H3 then I like to play Rook d8 and then in this position since I cannot pin them which you know is one of the ideas I like to Castle Rook D1 and play Knight E4 this is what I like to do and a lot of people don't know what to do about this bishop they don't want to damage their pawns so they'll try to defend it then I take they don't want to damage their structure so they go here and then I just double up my Rooks I play Rook D6 Rook D2 Rook d8 Rook D1 and we have this position and it's equal but then I try to attack their Knight I try to get rid of their Knight or I just I just wait a little bit I slow play uh maybe I try to advance some of my pawns over here I Target their Bishop you know if they run away with the bishop I have Rook C6 maybe they're going to lose this pawn and the pressure just sort of never stops Queen B4 I wanton a pawn oops Rook C2 Bishop C2 Rook C1 I go here I'm going to take the Knight and damage and and suddenly White's entire position disintegrates and it's just a matter of time before you you know you break down that Queen side now in this game my opponent went A4 I've seen that move before so I said no thank you you can't control that they went here I castled no reason to take you don't have to take you can take when you're ready they went here now I'm ready I take White's dark squared Bishop is completely bad and now I play Knight T5 and I'm already better black already has an advantage from the opening I'm pressuring this this Pawn to C 6 is on the way and B2 is going to be a weakness and I also have Rook d8 I mean you literally cannot ask for an easier position to play it's just incredible like it it just drops in your in your lap like a silver platter my opponent played Rook A3 trying to take back with the Rook but that's a huge mistake because after take take C6 my opponent will lose the pawn on B2 completely and then they will lose all their pawns if they didn't do that I'm not sure what they could have done but they went here they made it worse for themselves I took on B2 and now we are going to watch as I vacu clean the rest of the pawns they go here I take this Pawn the pawn that they got to the center by playing this very natural aggressive knight move right and a few moves later it just perishes Queen B2 Queen E5 day take on F5 Queen takes F5 and Rook takes B7 and I'm just a pawn up just like in the Pina game queens and Rooks and again the queen side is going to be very useful we can play Rook d8 Rook B8 let's go here Queen goes out to E2 Rook D5 and now it's just about converting we plant The Rook on the powerful C5 Square always good to get our King some breathing room as well H6 will always be useful I took on the pawn on C2 now I'm two pawns up now I make a getaway Square for my king so I'm never made it my king goes to G7 and now I just need to protect this diagonal all right and we do it two pawns up absolutely no threats to the king and now we just have to either win this Pawn or start rolling our pawns Queen E5 always threatening the the the the capture Queen D4 now we've threatened the queen trade and we are threatening the third pawn my opponent didn't want the queen trade so instead they lost the third pawn and I mean again this game was just absolutely straightforward Queen B2 get the Queens off the board run the king into the end game and just push and my opponent resigned when we do a game review of this game uh I will check it for you that was one of the easiest games I have ever played in this line and it has nothing to do with my OPP opponent they just played somewhere I was more comfortable I knew the ideas they played a couple of natural moves not even realizing how poisonous the position could become how dangerous the position could become and uh got into a terrible situation and I won and my accuracy in this game as we await for game review 94% and I don't even know where the inaccuracies were the inaccuracies could be in the opening okay one inaccuracy according to gamer was moving my knight to the center and instead I should have played Rook d8 first so I should have attacked the queen before I move the Knight but then it wants to move the Knight there and then Rook D5 so already you have a much better end game this is kind of like barely an inaccuracy because we're just already up upon PA it wants me to go here instead I think for a human that's not really understandable virtually a Flawless game and game review estimated my rating in this game at 3200 and that's the way you play the scandan AV did I do anything crazy in this game not really and this position has come up so many times in my games this exact position you will be shocked of course you will have other lines in the Scandinavian but as you get stronger and stronger you learn what to do against those for example you know that if your opponent doesn't play Knight C3 as I showed you if your opponent doesn't play Knight C3 you develop your Bishop like this your knight like this you Castle Queen side and when they Castle you go on an attack that is The Game Plan and as you get stronger you start adding more layers but you have to prepare an opening against the most common things that you're going to face and by far and why I love the Scandinavian the odds that you getting this and this and this or this but we know that's not even particularly dangerous but getting a setup with the two knights the bishop out the classical setup super simple and straight forward friendly reminder Sal ANS tonight go check out the course if you like it you can get it 25% off today if you don't want to spend any money no problem go try out the free sample I will cover this exact thing in the free sample it's all I have for you today go enjoy this new and updated Scandinavian opening if you want to watch the old video definitely make sure to check it out I'm going to keep playing this opening I'm going to keep having a blast now get out of here

ladies and gentlemen welcome to a chess opening video that may change your life in this video I&#39;m going to be covering the Gotham Scandinavian which is an opening that has netted me a 100% win rate in a specific variation and an 80% overall win rate in the entire opening right now I am loving the Scandinavian I&#39;m loving the way that I play it a while ago couple of years ago I made kind of a basic introductory Scandinavian video this one will be completely different and I also recently launched a Scandinavian defense course if you&#39;re lucky enough to catch this video the first day it comes out that course is on sale right now I&#39;ll put a link in the description but also it has a massive free sample so if you like what you see in this video the first line of the description will be that course and you can get the free sample 100% free no questions asked and you can add the Scandinavian to your toolbox so the way this video is going to work is I&#39;m going to analyze the Scandinavia the way that I like it the Gotham scandy then I&#39;m going to show you three games that I&#39;ve played with it including against the number two ranked player on planet Earth if you can play your favorite chess opening against the number two ranked player in the world and get the position that I got I think this opening is worth showcasing then I will show you a couple of my other highlights and victories uh and um we&#39;re going to have a great time so the Scandinavian defense is a really fun opening and it begins after E4 and the reason why it&#39;s fun and it&#39;s offbeat is that it forces white into a decision from the very first move now the computer is always going to say white is a touch better in certain openings but I want you not to even look at the evaluation but rather look at the position white is going to be studying Kings Pawn Sicilian French Carl Khan this move forces white now to react to us and the other reason I like the Scandinavian is the odds of you getting a certain position on the board are very high that&#39;s the effectiveness of learning and opening the chance of you getting Pawn takes D5 is over 90% And after you take back with the queen of course there&#39;s other openings like the Portuguese Gambit which I do like very much as well this is the pure Scandinavian bringing out the queen and the odds of you getting attacked by this Knight are also about 80% so the odds of this this being the opening position of your opening are extremely high and now the retreating squares for this queen are off to the side one back and all the way back all the way back is actually quite popular slightly back is the third most popular but I would like to rotate Our Queen to the edge of the board and here is going to be our developing plan in the Gotham scandy okay previous video I had like an introductory concept I said develop your knight like this develop your Bishop but I have worked on this opening and I&#39;ve perfected this opening and now I&#39;m going to share it with all of you the way we&#39;re going to develop is we&#39;re going to play Knight to F6 the bishop will frequently come to the F5 Square sometimes it will go to G4 depending on how white develops and then we will develop our Pawn we will develop our Bishop and depending on which setup white chooses we will Castle there or we will Castle there remember listen to me if you are confused at any point there&#39;s a free sample that will go in much greater detail than this video with exercises with videos with drills all my courses come with multiple ways of learning and opening not just video so if you haven&#39;t checked out Chesley which is my chess courses website mine they&#39;re they don&#39;t sponsor me uh you definitely should now the most common setup by white is D4 Knight F3 okay this setup with the pawn here with the Knight here and the bishop out on the C4 Square it can happen in any order it can be Knight out it could be Pawn out but generally white is going to play like this and if white plays like this we will F fulfill our Gotham scan and the uh opening setup if however white decides to Target Our Queen which does happen quite frequently like we develop our Knight and then white instead of playing this move uh let&#39;s say plays Bishop to D2 then we play Bishop G4 in one go and the idea is while white has blocked uh their Queen&#39;s defense of the center and they are targeting us here we&#39;re safe we&#39;re safe don&#39;t panic when the bishop comes over here if the Knight cannot actually create a meaningful threat if the Knight goes there we take it if the Knight goes there we can&#39;t take it but we will slide Our Queen over to safety if the Knight goes there then you know we take it so you got to be you you got to be a little bit on your toes here and it depends where white is going to set up but all of that is covered Bishop G4 Knight C6 Castle Queen side is the way we&#39;re going to play the most common way that white likes to play this position is Knight F3 Bishop F5 Bishop C4 we play Pawn to E6 and I like to put my Bishop there trade the bishop for the Knight and I will show you where I win 100 100% of my games Bishop D2 Bishop B4 again white could play castles then Bishop D2 doesn&#39;t matter Bishop here trade the bishop for the Knight when it&#39;s attacked only when it&#39;s attacked only when it&#39;s attacked Slide the queen back to the B6 Square where it&#39;s comfortable and from this position I have played I believe 15 games at this very moment and I have a 15-0 record which is unheard of in an opening the position is roughly balanced and what I like to do before I commit my king is I like to play Knight C6 and I&#39;m setting a trap I have eyes on the D4 pawn and for this game what&#39;s going to happen is I&#39;m going to put a rook on d8 going to put pressure on White&#39;s position like this this bishop which I&#39;ve granted to White the dark squared Bishop is not particularly powerful or useful it&#39;s sort of stuck stuck and I will try to remove the defender of the Knight win the pawn or I&#39;m going to try to put pressure here or put my knight on e4 or D5 take this bishop and remove the control like this positions in the balance but I&#39;ve had people play all sorts of things and the trap that I&#39;m setting is Pawn to D5 the Trap is that I haven&#39;t castled and my opponent is going to think what a dummy oh my goodness I&#39;m going to attack their King but since I hav&#39;t castled short side I&#39;m setting a trap to Castle long and suddenly white is caught they can&#39;t take the Knight because they&#39;re going to lose the queen so I&#39;m threatening to just simply take this Pawn on D5 and I will show you a game uh a bit later uh which uh which went exactly like this I&#39;ve had a few games go like this and and white is already almost lost white has to defend basically perfectly because the alternative is simply losing the queen now you still have to be accurate surely you know you don&#39;t just win the game because you get a good position from the opening but this is about as good as you could ask for in about 15 moves and if they don&#39;t fall for that if they play Rook E1 we Castle we put pressure on the Knight we put the Rook on the file and this is just about the most stable position that we can get in this opening we will put pressure on these pawns we&#39;ll put pressure on the defile get rid of the Knight or we will go get rid of that Bishop to damage white structure and then we go on to convert a very nice game that is the most common setup in this opening so again relatively straightforward right we developed our Knight and our Bishop to F5 in this setup if white lets us we will play Bishop to B4 we will trade off the Knight when we are attacked Knight C6 Queen slides back to B6 and then we will castle one way or another if white Falls for our trap we go long if white doesn&#39;t then we will go short that&#39;s a lot to remember if that&#39;s too much to remember you can obviously simplify it down for yourself um the the the more you learn about this opening the more you learn kind of like the intricacies and the details uh you will learn that the knight jump to the middle of the board is very lethal that&#39;s another subtle detail your opponent if they try to trap you with the Knight you got to respect that and one of the best ways to get out with your queen in the Scandinavian is to play Pawn to C6 you might not like that your queen is out and about and so uh if you are developing in a certain way and your opponent is putting pressure on you you might just say you know what I just want to bring my queen back like this and that&#39;s probably fine as well that&#39;s technically not the way I want you to play the Scandinavian but you know what this is still a very solid position you have borderline no problems your rock solid your opponent cannot go D5 You&#39;ll Play Knight D7 and start advancing ing your pawns like this put a knight on the D5 square and all your pieces are developed everything is good and your opponent has no obvious weaknesses in your position that they could potentially exploit so the position um is very easy to play actually and um again I&#39;m no rocket scientist but I&#39;ve been basically playing the Scandinavian the exact same way with some small you know detail changes of whether I put the bishop on that square or that square very subtle if you play the Scandinavian all the time with a bishop on F5 you&#39;ll probably be fine if you play the Scandinavian all the time with a bishop on G4 you&#39;ll probably also be fine but my Gotham scandy is a mixture of these two moves depending on how white sets up again free sample you can go play with it I&#39;m telling you right now if you&#39;re like what this is too fast I I can&#39;t I&#39;m telling you to add to your knowledge you can try my free sample like there&#39;s no strings attached okay so uh if you want to take your learning to the next level I do have a free offering of every course but specifically this one I&#39;m really encouraging that you uh you try some of these out cuz it&#39;s 100 I&#39;m not bsing you um now let&#39;s take a look at some games okay obviously there&#39;s a lot more and I could probably make an hour video covering the theory of the Scandinavian but it&#39;s good to look at some practical games I played Fabiano Carana with the Scandinavian and Fabiano respected this opening so much that might be sarcasm that in this position he didn&#39;t even want to mess with my opening and instead he played a goofy move which is night to H4 nobody has ever played this against me I&#39;ve played probably 200 Scandinavian games just a very offbeat move trying to get my bishop and what did I do I just slid it back to G6 I said Fabiano you want to take it you&#39;re going to have to open up my rook and Fabby you know and and and and you see here I&#39;m kind of deciding which way I&#39;m going to Castle I ended up playing here and castling short and um Fabby took my Bishop I kept a rock solid Pawn structure I developed my Rook to d8 and already here I&#39;m just maintaining relatively complete equality against the second best chess player in the world and my game plan is pretty straightforward I didn&#39;t get the exact setup I I showed you but again I have my pieces all out on their active squares and the Scandinavian is a relatively shy and tame opening until you find the pawn breaks so in every Scandinavian position you&#39;ve got those Pawn braks that&#39;ll open up the position make your position come alive and your queen will either come back this way but in this game My Queen rotated to that side of the board which is another very common way of playing that Scandinavian um and you&#39;ll even see early on in the Scandinavian games if your opponent never even attack attacks your queen like if they just play Knight F3 you can develop and Castle Queen side and then when they try to come after your Bishop you can bring the queen not there but you could bring the queen here and offer up the bishop as a sacrifice and then just try to go Checkmate your opponent Queen F4 Queen H5 be careful if you play Queen H5 right away there&#39;s a fork but that&#39;s sort of the general idea that&#39;s also in the course by the way um but in this game I got a very solid structure and then I went for E5 and I just basically said you know what I&#39;m not going to respect Fabi I&#39;m clearly respecting him because I&#39;m down 40 seconds and I&#39;m terrified but um I got a completely reasonable position against him take take he went Knight here I brought my queen back to defend my pawn and I created this structure we have one two three four five out of six pawns on light squares and I said Fabiano come and get me and he might overtake me in the long run but this is everything you can ask for in an opening if you can be equal terms with Tony mo one of the best players in the world and then be playing for a win and be competitive in the game a little while later it&#39;s great and you know we we started shuffling we got into a big fight for the center I don&#39;t have a single piece in my position that is loose meaning like can be targeted these pieces are not guarded but it&#39;s very difficult to attack them B3 rookie eight and um I was ready to get nervous in this game and end up losing it but then we cross 30 moves and the position is still completely equal now do I have 12 seconds absolutely I&#39;m terrified of my opponent but the opening is a success as far as I&#39;m concerned and I was very happy with this game because by the 35th move I&#39;m still completely on equal terms and I was outmaneuvering I was targeting his weaknesses uh all of my pieces were active but you know as fate would have it I would get to 5 seconds on the clock and then at that point move 40 no opening can really save you we were shuffling we were maneuvering pieces started falling off the board and even here it&#39;s an equal end game but here I made a mistake I um I saw his Rook coming in I went here and unfortunately now he just plays Rook to D7 uh the best move here would have been for me to just activate my Pawn really quickly so that it would be difficult for him to swarm Rook D5 B4 if he goes after my Pawn I can try to play defense I&#39;m passive and definitely white is playing this for a win but hey 40 moves against the second best player on the planet you&#39;re just trying to beat 12 and 1400s maybe 1800s and I was very proud of this and this is purely a Scandinavian you know this is not obviously a popular line I have never seen the move Knight H4 except in this game but look what I did I just brought out my pieces some of you may be wondering why I didn&#39;t develop my Bishop to the B4 Square I could have I could have but I decided to do it like this it&#39;s because he was you know his Knight had wandered off and he was playing in a slightly offbeat way so I thought I would Target his King but Bishop B4 would have also been all right and then I just kind of followed the game plan I just centralized struck in the center and who knows if my opponent was anybody except Fabiano maybe this would have been a nice win for me in a game where my opponent wasn&#39;t Fabiano this is from my final match in the recent I am not a GM speeds Championship I had made it to the finals and my opponent was Pina shalva AKA Flawless fighter uh and there we go this is one of the first Scandinavians I ever played so this Scandinavian was played October 2023 this is when I was in my early days of practicing this opening a little bit more consistently building up kind of my my knowledge and my opinions of of of of the opening I played Queen A5 we see this most common thing that I&#39;ve showed you this is not what Fabiano played this is in a real game real live action castles and I played Bishop to B4 now technically very technical detail technically black is only supposed to play Bishop B4 when white plays Bishop D2 and the reason for that is after castles Bishop to B4 technically white can move the Knight cuz there&#39;s no King there anymore so white could say haha I&#39;m maneuvering this way and now I&#39;m going to kick you out and I&#39;ve had that happen and what I do when that happens is I just remember like the Fabby game literally like the Fabby game right if A4 obviously I&#39;ll play A5 I don&#39;t want to get my queen trapped and then I will bring out my knight and it&#39;s just like the Fabiano game I mean seriously like let&#39;s say you know our opponent goes Bishop D2 we play Knight C6 it&#39;s the same setup that we had in the Fabiano game uh I can even show you see very similar structure so a lot of this stuff can overlap uh but she played Bishop D2 so we did something called a transposition it it transposed we took a different route but we got there uh we got there in the end so she played this bishop D2 and we just saw this in the introduction we know that here instead of castling I like to play Knight C6 because I want to set the trap for D5 if you Castle here you&#39;ll be fine A3 take take it&#39;s exactly what I was showing you your opponents might play Knight E5 and you will play Knight C6 Rook d8 Bishop G4 Knight E4 all of this already showed the this to you and it&#39;s got we go in a lot more detail in my free sample Knight C6 and there&#39;s the position and she fell into the Trap she&#39;s a very good player she&#39;s 2760 Blitz the people you&#39;re going to play are half that rating maybe 2,000 points even lower than that rating in Blitz and she fell into the Trap and I castled queenside now she&#39;s going to lose the pawn so what did she do she did something natural she took my knight she was like well without his Knight he&#39;s not actually threatening as much my center right but that opened the attack on her king plus I don&#39;t have to take right away and damage my pawns I can undevelop my knight and then take with the Knight I don&#39;t actually have to uh you know and that&#39;s exactly what I did here I could have played Knight to E7 but instead I went here and now my idea is to pressure the king but also just take the pawn without splitting up my pawns this must have been very annoying for her and what I did here is I simplified the position even further I took the Knight she went here I forked her forcing the queen to guard the bishop and then I did did this and now rather than splitting up my pawns I took on D5 so we&#39;ve just played 17 moves and I&#39;ve emerged from the opening with a clean Pawn up in what other opening do you get one of the purest forms of a pawn up advantage and not just a pawn up Advantage I am also looking to attack on the G file I&#39;m also looking to put pressure on the queen side and that&#39;s life now of course this game was much more chaotic there was a lot more ups and downs and we will get into that and I will you know entertain you a little bit I tried to trade the Queens with her because she was attacking my pawns she did not want a queen trade I played Rook F5 and now we danced around here a little bit I tried to attack her but she defended and then I said H5 and this is the way I was going to play this position but her username is literally Flawless fighter so she began fighting she tried to kick out my queen I played Queen C6 she tried to Target the pawn your my king and as you can see I had a pretty big Advantage a couple of moves ago but right now I&#39;m a little bit under Fire so B6 and she just goes directly at me right I could have converted this a little bit better maybe I could have have been a bit more aggressive but suddenly I&#39;m like really on the defensive and she is activating her pieces Rook D3 she activates the queen I&#39;m in bad shape I&#39;m very nervous here definitely stressing and uh this could have been converted in a much better way but we will go through the game uh and the next game will be a very smooth conversion Rook C8 she took my Pawn I took this pawn pawn started falling off the board like uh you know uh like I don&#39;t like I don&#39;t know like what apples off a cart A5 she attacks my my queen so I can&#39;t take because my Rook is is hanging but I&#39;m still the pawn up I&#39;m still holding on I&#39;m still a pawn up I&#39;m surviving I&#39;m still up a pawn and now I start lining up against our King but uh we&#39;re in a crazy scramble we both have 5 Seconds mistakes will probably be made Queen takes A4 she goes Queen H6 and um I managed to get into an endgame I have no idea why I didn&#39;t play Rook takes F2 check it&#39;s probably because I have three seconds on the clock but as you can see these pawns survive into the end game and I played A3 I played Rook A5 and now she can&#39;t stop me from queening so she took and she resigned because my Pawn is just making it through this is a very common Motif in a lot of my Scandinavian games I usually win that pawn from that opening Skirmish and then what I do is I just pressure on the queen side and then I go on and I win the game and I&#39;m going to show you a game where I did exactly that this is a strong player 2500 again you&#39;re probably not even playing people who are 2500 watch how easy this opening can be E4 D5 take take Knight C3 and we are again in this position where I have won 100% of the time 100% now of course the criticism will be but Gotham there&#39;s positions where you&#39;ve lost yes it&#39;s clickbait you don&#39;t always win 100% correct but in this particular branch which is the most popular which means you will face it the most I have 100 100% of the time which is how openings are effective if I&#39;m wi if I&#39;m getting 100% win rate and overall in the Scandinavian meaning in this position I&#39;m getting 77 78% win rate it&#39;s a pretty darn effective opening 78% is crazy you&#39;re supposed to win 53% of the time it means that the positions are tried and tested and clearly pretty easy to play so again let&#39;s go back to that position let&#39;s see what happens when an opponent does not fall for the Trap I have had everything under the in this position thrown at me Rook E1 Pawn ta to H3 I&#39;ve had opponents go H3 then I like to play Rook d8 and then in this position since I cannot pin them which you know is one of the ideas I like to Castle Rook D1 and play Knight E4 this is what I like to do and a lot of people don&#39;t know what to do about this bishop they don&#39;t want to damage their pawns so they&#39;ll try to defend it then I take they don&#39;t want to damage their structure so they go here and then I just double up my Rooks I play Rook D6 Rook D2 Rook d8 Rook D1 and we have this position and it&#39;s equal but then I try to attack their Knight I try to get rid of their Knight or I just I just wait a little bit I slow play uh maybe I try to advance some of my pawns over here I Target their Bishop you know if they run away with the bishop I have Rook C6 maybe they&#39;re going to lose this pawn and the pressure just sort of never stops Queen B4 I wanton a pawn oops Rook C2 Bishop C2 Rook C1 I go here I&#39;m going to take the Knight and damage and and suddenly White&#39;s entire position disintegrates and it&#39;s just a matter of time before you you know you break down that Queen side now in this game my opponent went A4 I&#39;ve seen that move before so I said no thank you you can&#39;t control that they went here I castled no reason to take you don&#39;t have to take you can take when you&#39;re ready they went here now I&#39;m ready I take White&#39;s dark squared Bishop is completely bad and now I play Knight T5 and I&#39;m already better black already has an advantage from the opening I&#39;m pressuring this this Pawn to C 6 is on the way and B2 is going to be a weakness and I also have Rook d8 I mean you literally cannot ask for an easier position to play it&#39;s just incredible like it it just drops in your in your lap like a silver platter my opponent played Rook A3 trying to take back with the Rook but that&#39;s a huge mistake because after take take C6 my opponent will lose the pawn on B2 completely and then they will lose all their pawns if they didn&#39;t do that I&#39;m not sure what they could have done but they went here they made it worse for themselves I took on B2 and now we are going to watch as I vacu clean the rest of the pawns they go here I take this Pawn the pawn that they got to the center by playing this very natural aggressive knight move right and a few moves later it just perishes Queen B2 Queen E5 day take on F5 Queen takes F5 and Rook takes B7 and I&#39;m just a pawn up just like in the Pina game queens and Rooks and again the queen side is going to be very useful we can play Rook d8 Rook B8 let&#39;s go here Queen goes out to E2 Rook D5 and now it&#39;s just about converting we plant The Rook on the powerful C5 Square always good to get our King some breathing room as well H6 will always be useful I took on the pawn on C2 now I&#39;m two pawns up now I make a getaway Square for my king so I&#39;m never made it my king goes to G7 and now I just need to protect this diagonal all right and we do it two pawns up absolutely no threats to the king and now we just have to either win this Pawn or start rolling our pawns Queen E5 always threatening the the the the capture Queen D4 now we&#39;ve threatened the queen trade and we are threatening the third pawn my opponent didn&#39;t want the queen trade so instead they lost the third pawn and I mean again this game was just absolutely straightforward Queen B2 get the Queens off the board run the king into the end game and just push and my opponent resigned when we do a game review of this game uh I will check it for you that was one of the easiest games I have ever played in this line and it has nothing to do with my OPP opponent they just played somewhere I was more comfortable I knew the ideas they played a couple of natural moves not even realizing how poisonous the position could become how dangerous the position could become and uh got into a terrible situation and I won and my accuracy in this game as we await for game review 94% and I don&#39;t even know where the inaccuracies were the inaccuracies could be in the opening okay one inaccuracy according to gamer was moving my knight to the center and instead I should have played Rook d8 first so I should have attacked the queen before I move the Knight but then it wants to move the Knight there and then Rook D5 so already you have a much better end game this is kind of like barely an inaccuracy because we&#39;re just already up upon PA it wants me to go here instead I think for a human that&#39;s not really understandable virtually a Flawless game and game review estimated my rating in this game at 3200 and that&#39;s the way you play the scandan AV did I do anything crazy in this game not really and this position has come up so many times in my games this exact position you will be shocked of course you will have other lines in the Scandinavian but as you get stronger and stronger you learn what to do against those for example you know that if your opponent doesn&#39;t play Knight C3 as I showed you if your opponent doesn&#39;t play Knight C3 you develop your Bishop like this your knight like this you Castle Queen side and when they Castle you go on an attack that is The Game Plan and as you get stronger you start adding more layers but you have to prepare an opening against the most common things that you&#39;re going to face and by far and why I love the Scandinavian the odds that you getting this and this and this or this but we know that&#39;s not even particularly dangerous but getting a setup with the two knights the bishop out the classical setup super simple and straight forward friendly reminder Sal ANS tonight go check out the course if you like it you can get it 25% off today if you don&#39;t want to spend any money no problem go try out the free sample I will cover this exact thing in the free sample it&#39;s all I have for you today go enjoy this new and updated Scandinavian opening if you want to watch the old video definitely make sure to check it out I&#39;m going to keep playing this opening I&#39;m going to keep having a blast now get out of here

Transcript for:Gotham Scandinavian Chess Opening

Transcript for:
Gotham Scandinavian Chess Opening