Blocked centre

I'm a big scandinavian player, and that opening goes like this:

The problem is in this variation, you get a blocked centre:

Why are you playing e6 so early? I would have thought that one of the major drawbacks of 2. e5 against the Scandinavian is that it allows Black to develop his c8-Bishop before playing e6.

Yes... that's why I don't understand why the OP is playing e6 and locking in the c8-Bishop. The move order White uses (2. e5 in the Scandi) gives Black the option of playing a French with the c8-Bishop developed OUTSIDE the Pawn chain instead of being locked inside it.

This is the french defense, Pick up a course on it

You have a membership watch Simon William's series in the lessons

While it is a direct transposition to the French, why do that?  White's 2.e5 is terrible!

Play 2...c5 and 3...Bf5 before putting your pawn on e6.

In the French, the Bishop is behind the pawn chain, but you get c7-c5 in in one go.

In the Caro-Kann, the Bishop is outside the pawn chain, but it takes you 2 moves, c7-c6 and c6-c5, to break with the c-pawn.

Here, after White's idiotic 2nd move, you get your cake and eat it too.  You get an extra tempo.  You get the Caro-Kann Bishop with the French acceleration of the c-pawn.  You are, in essence, playing a Caro with a free move!

The problem with the Scandinavian and what makes it a secondary defense and weaker than e5, e6, c5, or c6 is specifically 2.exd5!  It is White's only good move (2.Nc3 is only equal and all other moves are worse for White), but it is a VERY good move!

Thank you SO much for this.

1 e4 d5 2 e5 Bf5 or 2...c5 is good for black.

so if white wants a closed position with 2 e5 he's probably going to get it as i don't see how black plays otherwise, but as black you gain better options while white doesn't. you do need to know a bit of general play from the other openings with similar structures but it's not that bad to study the pawn chain as it will teach you important concepts revolving around blocked centers anyway.